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/^/&  HE  BOYCOTT  IN  AMERICAN 

TRADE  UNIONS 


My 

GD 


BY 
LEO  WOLMAN 


A  DISShin  ATiON 

Submitted  to  the  Board  of  University  Studies  of  The  Johns 

Hopkins  University  in  Conformity  with  the  Requirements 

for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy 

^       1914 


Baltimore 
1Q16 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/boycottinamericaOOwolmrich 


THE  BOYCOTT  IN  AMERICAN  TRADE  UNIONS 


THE  BOYCOTT  IN  AMERICAN 
TRADE  UNIONS 


BY 
LEO  WOLMAN 


W7 


A  DISSERTATION 

Submitted  to  the  Board  of  University  Studies  of  The  Johns 

Hopkins  University  in  Conformity  with  the  Requirements 

for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy 

1914 


Baltimore 

iqi6 


Copyright  1916  by 
THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  PRESS 


PRESS  OF 

THE  NEW  ERA  PRINTING  COMPANV 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


CONTENTS 

Pack 

Preface vii 

Chapter      I.    The  Nature  of  the  Boycott 9 

Chapter    II.    The  History  of  the  Boycott 16 

Chapter  III.    The  Boycott  on  Materials 43 

Chapter  IV.    The  Boycott  on  Commodities 73 

Chapter    V.    The  Mechanism  of  the  Boycott 100 

Chapter  VI.    The  Law  and  the  Boycott 129 


346619 


PREFACE 

This  monograph  had  its  origin  in  an  investigation  carried 
on  by  the  author  while  a  member  of  the  economic  seminary 
of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University.  The  chief  sources  of  in- 
formation have  been  the  trade-union  publications  contained 
in  the  University  library.  Documentary  study,  however, 
has  been  supplemented  by  personal  interviews  with  trade- 
union  officials  and  with  employers. 

The  author  wishes  to  express  his  appreciation  of  the  help- 
ful criticism  received  from  Professor  J.  H.  Hollander  and 
Professor  G.  E.  Bamett. 

L.  W. 


vu 


THE  BOYCOTT  IN  AMERICAN  TRADE 
UNIONS 


CHAPTER   I 

The  Nature  of  the  Boycott 

The  passage  by  Congress  of  the  labor  union,  injunction 
and  contempt  sections  of  the  Clayton  Anti-Trust  Bill  and 
the  decision  by  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  on  Janu- 
ary 5,  191 5,  affirming  the  judgment  of  the  lower  courts  in 
the  famous  Danbury  Hatters'  case^  should  again  direct  the 
attention  of  students  of  the  labor  problem  to  the  position  of 
the  trade-union  boycott  in  American  industrial  life.  A  de- 
cision by  the  judicial  branch  of  the  federal  government 
which  imposes  a  severe  legal  disability  upon  the  boycott  and 
the  adoption  by  the  legislative  department  of  an  act  which 
is  interpreted  as  both  sanctioning  and  forbidding  its  use* 
warrant  a  more  thorough  examination  than  has  heretofore 
been  made  of  the  origin  and  function  of  the  boycott  as  a  re- 

I235   U.    S.  522. 

8  Thus,  "  Mr.  Gompers,  at  least,  regards  the  act  as  an  unqualified 
victory.  In  his  leading  article  in  the  November  American  Federa- 
tionist  (1914),  he  says:  'The  labor  sections  of  the  Clayton  Anti- 
Trust  act  are  a  great  victory  for  organized  labor.  In  no  other 
country  in  the  world  is  there  an  enunciation  of  fundamental  prin- 
ciple comparable  to  the  incisive,  virile  statement  in  section  C.*" 
(P.  G.  Wright,  "The  Contest  in  Congress  between  Organized 
Labor  and  Organized  Business,"  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics, 
vol.  xxix,  p.  261).  On  the  other  hand,  Daniel  Davenport,  General 
Counsel  for  the  American  Anti-Boycott  Association,  says :  "  In 
the  shape  in  which  it  finally  passed  it  makes  few  changes  in  existing 
laws  relating  to  labor  unions,  injunctions  and  contempts  of  court, 
and  those  are  of  slight  practical  importance"  (An  Analysis  of  the 
Labor  Union,  Injunction  and  Contempt  Sections  of  the  Clayton 
Anti-Trust  Bill,  published  by  the  American  Anti-Boycott  Associa- 
tion). The  actual  effect  of  the  Clayton  Anti-Trust  Act  cannot,  of 
course,  be  determined  until  it  has  been  interpreted  by  the  courts. 


lO  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

I  source  of  trade  unions.  In  the  case  of  the  boycott,  as  in 
fj  such  other  trade-union  devices  as  the  restriction  of  output, 
the  regulation  of  the  number  of  apprentices,  and  the  closed 
^hop,  popular  condemnation  or  approval  has  been  too  often 
dictated  by  prejudices  engendered  by  the  natural  alignment 
of  sections  of  the  population  with  the  employing  or  the 
laboring  class.  American  literature  on  the  subject  has  made 
little  attempt  up  to  the  present  time  to  lift  the  discussion 
above  the  plane  of  partisan  controversy.  In  this  monograph 
it  is  designed  to  make  an  impartial  study  of  the  boycott  in 
its  relation  to  trade  unionism;  of  the  circumstances  which 
attend  the  emergence  of  the  boycott ;  of  its  value  as  an  or- 
ganizing device ;  of  the  effect  upon  trade  unions  of  its  aban- 
donment as  a  resource  of  enforcement;  of  the  extent  to 
which  it  is  employed;  and  finally  of  its  legal  and  ethical 
aspects. 

Originally,  the  term  boycott  denoted  social  ostracism.* 
While  still  employed  extensively  to  characterize  expulsion 
from  social  intercourse,  the  term  is  now  most  frequently 
applied  to  certain  forms  of  economic  or  industrial  pressure, 
and  more  particularly  to  the  economic  pressure  exerted  by 
the  members  of  labor  organizations.  The  boycotting  car- 
ried on  by  trade  unions  has  been  variously  defined.*    By 

«  For  a  detailed  description  of  the  origin  of  the  term  boycott,  see 
H.  W.  Laidler,  Boycotts  and  the  Labor  Struggle,  p.  23.  See  also 
R.  B.  O'Brien,  Life  of  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  p.  236  ff. 

*  The  difficulties  encountered  in  properly  defining  the  boycott  arc 
well  described  by  Fritz  Kestner:  "From  the  standpoint  of  judicial 
declarations  the  boycott  is  a  chameleon  that  is  impossible  of  defini- 
tion. In  its  historical  origin  it  is  not  concerned  with  the  accom- 
plishment of  a  demand  but  is  an  act  of  vengeance,  social  punish- 
ment. Soon  the  term  boycott  indicated  the  collective  withdrawal 
of  the  labor  force  irom  an  employer.  It  then  became  necessary  to 
distinguish  the  boycott  from  the  strike;  the  strike  was  defined 
as  the  deliberate  refusal  t6  work  for  an  employer  and  the  boycott 
as  the  d^iberate  refusal  to  buy  from  him.  At  the  same  time  boy- 
cotting also  referred  to  the  attempts  of  labor  organizations  to 
obstruct  approaches  to  industrial  establishments;  and  finally  the 
term  was  applied  to  every  manner  of  warfare  between  employer 
and  employees  that  was  not  a  direct  strike. 

"  With  the  growth  of  industrial  organization,  the  rules  that  were 
made   within   the   labor   unions   and   the   employers*   associations 


NATURE  OF  THE   BOYCOTT  II 

some  writers  coercion  of  disinterested  parties  is  considered 
an  essential  element  of  this  trade-union  device.  Thus  Dr. 
W.  A.  Martin,**  deriving  his  definition  from  various  judicial 
opinions,  defines  the  boycott  as  "a  combination  to  cause  a  *^ 
loss  to  one  person  by  coercing  others  against  their  will,  to 
withdraw  from  him  their  beneficial  business  intercourse,  by 
threats,  that  unless  those  others  do  so,  the  combination  will 
cause  similar  loss  to  them."  While  not  placing  so  great  an 
emphasis  on  the  element  of  coercion.  Dr.  T.  S.  Adams  and 
Dr.  H.  L.  Sumner^  also  consider  the  support  of  a  disinter- 
ested party  as  a  sine  qua  non  of  the  boycott.  "  The  boycott, 
as  used  in  modern  labor  disputes,"  they  write,  "  may  be  de- 
fined as  a  combination  to  suspend  dealings  with  another 
party,  and  to  persuade  or  coerce  others  to  suspend  dealings, 
in  order  to  force  this  party  to  comply  with  some  demand, 
or  to  punish  him  for  non-compliance  in  the  past." 

An  analysis  of  certain  forms  of  pressure  to  which  the 
term  boycott  is  commonly  applied  would  indicate  that  neither 
of  the  above  elements  is  an  essential  and  universal  attribute 
of  the  boycott.  To  use  a  concrete  illustration,  when  the 
members  of  a  local  union  of  bakers,  who  have  been  locked 
out  by  the  master  bakers  of  the  community,  combine  to 
withdraw  their  patronage  from  the  bakeries,  their  action  is 
ordinarily  regarded  as  constituting  a  boycott  upon  the  un- 
fair employers  and  would  be  so  termed.  Yet  the  act  is 
marked  neither  by  coercion  nor  by  the  support  of  a  third 
party;  it  is  merely  a  concerted  withdrawal  of  patronage. 
Similarly  Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb^  speak  of  the  "  boycott 
of  non-unionists,"  the  term  being  used  to  describe  the  device 
of  the  closed  shop,  or  the  refusal  of  union  members  to  work 
with  non-unionists,  and  the  consequent  inability  of  the  non- 


against  outsiders  were  scon  called  boycotts.  As  soon  as  the  same 
methods  which  these  organizations  employed  in  labor  disputes,  as, 
for  example,  restricting  the  supply  of  raw  materials,  the  diversion 
of  patronage  etc.,  were  also  adopted  by  the  cartels,  it  became 
customary  to  designate  all  of  the  weapons  of  the  cartels  against 
outsiders  as  boycotts"  (Der  Organisationszwang,  pp.  344-345). 

'^  The  Modern  Law  of  Labor  Unions,  pp.  103-104. 

<*  Labor  Problems,  pp.  176,  196. 

7  Industrial  Democracy,  vol.  i,  p.  215.    See  also  index,  p.  904. 


12  THE   BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

union  workman  to  obtain  work  in  a  union  shop  and  of  the 
union  employer  to  engage  the  services  of  a  non-union  work- 
man. Here,  however,  there  may  be  an  element  of  coercion, 
since  the  closed  shop  is  often  not  voluntarily  adopted  by  the 
employer  but  is  forced  upon  him  by  the  union.  Whether 
coercion  is  present  in  this  second  illustration  or  not,  it  is 
possible  to  detect  in  these  two  totally  dissimilar  examples  of 
the  boycott  a  characteristic  which  will  be  found  to  be  com- 
mon to  all  forms  of  pressure  that  are  given  that  name. 
This  common  characteristic  is  the  restriction  of  market;  in 
one  case  possibly  supplemented  by  the  coercion  of  a  third 
party,  the  employer,  and  in  the  other  free  from  coercion  or 
persuasion.  Thus  the  purpose  of  the  first  boycott  is  to  re- 
strict the  selling  market  of  the  master  bakers ;  the  second 
limits  the  market  of  the  non-union  workman  to  non-union 
shops,  and  likewise  limits  the  labor  market  of  the  employer 
to  union  workmen.  The  boycott  may,  therefore,  be  defined 
as  a  combination  formed  for  the  purpose  of  restricting  the 
markets  of  an  individual  or  group  of  individuals. 

Thus  defined,  the  boycott  of  course  includes  many  forms 
of  pressure  exerted  by  both  labor  organizations  and  other 
types  of  industrial  combinations,  which  because  of  the  pres- 
ence of  certain  peculiar  characteristics  have  received  dis- 
tinguishing names.  The  blacklist,  for  instance,  which  is 
used  by  combinations  of  employers,  is  a  boycott  upon  the 
blacklisted  laborer,  since  his  field  of  employment  is  restricted 
to  the  extent  that  he  is  unable  to  receive  employment  from 
the  manufacturers  who  subscribe  to  the  blacklist.®    The 

8  The  various  forms  of  blacklisting  which  are  employed  by  in- 
dustrial combinations,  not  against  workmen  but  against  firms  not 
members  of  the  combination,  contain  a  similar  element  of  boycott. 
Thus  the  Michigan  Retail  Lumber  Dealers'  Association  forbade 
"any  wholesaler  or  manufacturer,  dealer  or  his  agent"  to  sell 
"  lumber,  sash,  doors  or  blinds  for  building  purposes  to  any  person 
not  a  regular  dealer  "  (W.  S.  Stevens,  Industrial  Combinations  and 
Trusts,  p.  193).  This  rule,  of  course, -constituted  a  boycott  by  the 
combination  in  that  it  limited  the  market  for  materials  of  those 
persons  who  are  not  "regular  dealers."  Similar  instances  of  such 
industrial  or  trade  boycotts  can  be  easily  multiplied.  See,  for 
example.  The  Quarry  Workers'  Journal,  February,  1910,  p.  4;  A. 
C.  Pigou,  Wealth  and  Welfare,  p.  258;  W.  S.  Stevens,  Industrial 
Combinations,  p.  145. 


NATURE  OF  THE   BOYCOTT  1 3 

strike,  likewise,  constitutes  a  boycott  of  the  employer  by  re- 
stricting his  market  for  labor ;  and  if  the  activity  of  pickets 
in  keeping  strike-breakers  from  the  plant  be  noted,  the  ele- 
ment of  boycott  in  the  strike  is  still  more  clearly  shown. 
The  identity  of  the  labor  boycott  and  the  closed  shop  has 
already  been  discussed.  In  spite  of  the  logical  desirability 
of  assigning  to  all  such  forms  of  pressure  the  term  boycott, 
the  chronological  priority  of  the  terms  strike,  closed  shop, 
and  blacklist,  not  to  speak  of  the  peculiar  connotations  of 
each,  would  make  the  substitution  a  source  of  confusion 
rather  than  of  clearness.  In  order,  therefore,  so  to  delimit 
this  study  as  not  to  include  those  forms  of  the  boycott  which 
are  in  everyday  speech  called  strikes,  blacklists,  and  so  on, 
the  term  boycott  will  be  used  to  describe  the  efforts  of  labor 
combinations  to  restrict  Ifie  markets  of  employers  in  the 
purchase  and  sale  of  economic  goods,  whether  these  goods 
be  raw  materials,  materials  in  a  partial  state  of  completion, 
or  finished  products  about  to  be  sold  to  the  ultimate  con- 
sumer. . 

The  classification  of  boycotts  which  is  most  commonly 
used  is  that  which  divides  them  into  primary  and  secondary. 
T'he  primary  boycott  has  been  defined  as  that  form  in  which 
"the  action  is  directly  against  the  offending  employer,  the 
members  of  the  organization  simply  withholding  their 
patronage  as  laborers  or  purchasers,  and  inducing  their  fel- 
lows to  do  the  same."^_jrhus  if  the  Metal  Polishers'  Union 
is  involved  in  a  dispute  with  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range 
Company  and  the  members  of  the  union  combine  to  with- 
draw their  patronage  from  that  firm,  their  action  consti- 
tutes a  primary  boycott.  If,  furthermore,  the  boycott  of 
the  Metal  Polishers  is  endorsed  by  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  and  the  support  of  the  members  pi  affiliated 
unions  is  enlisted,  the  boycott  is  still  primary.  If,  however, 
a  boycott  is  imposed  upon  those  retail  merchants  who  are 

»L.  D.  Clark,  The  Law  of  the  Employment  of  Labor,  p.  289. 
See  also  Adams  and  Sumner,  p.  197;  B.  Wyman,  The  Control  of 
the  Market,  p.  69. 


14  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

customers  of  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Company,  the 
boycott  becomes  a  secondary  on^^ince  injury  is  inflicted 
upon  persons  not  concerned  with  the  original  dispute  with  a 
view  to  forcing  them  to  withdraw  their  patronage  from  the 
boycotted  manufacturer.  A  secondary  boycott  may,  there- 
fore, be  defined  as  a  combination  to  withdraw  patronage 
from  a  person  in  order  to  force  that  person  in  turn  to  with- 
draw his  patronage  from  that  individual  or  firm  with  whom 
the  union  was  primarily  at  odds. 

Boycotts  have  also  been  noted  which  are  imposed  upon 
persons  who  are  still  further  removed  from  the  original  dis- 
pute. In  the  fur  and  felt  hat  industry,  for  example,  the 
manufacturer  frequently  sells  the  finished  product  to  a 
jobber  and  he  in  turn  to  a  retail  dealer.  Here  a  boycott 
that  is  first  imposed  upon  the  manufacturer  usually  extends 
to  the  jobber  and  then  to  the  retailer.  The  boycott  upon 
the  retail  dealer  may  be  described  as  a  tertiary  boycott.  In 
other  words,  the  boycott  upon  the  manufacturer  is  primary ; 
that  on  the  jobber,  secondary;  and  that  on  the  retail  mer- 
chant, tertiary.  To  secondary  and  tertiary  boycotts,  or  in 
fact  to  all  that  extend  to  persons  not  concerned  in  the  orig- 
inal dispute,  the  term  compound  boycott  has  been  applied.^® 

For  the  basis  of  the  various  classifications  of  the  boycott 
made  by  different  writers  other  criteria  than  the  relation  of 
the  boycotted  person  to  the  original  disputants  have  been 
employed.  The  division,  for  example,  into  direct  and  in- 
direct boycotts,^^  where  the  direct  boycott  consists  in  the 
publication  in  an  unfair  list  of  the  name  of  the  offending  em- 
ployer and  the  indirect  boycott  denotes  the  methods  em- 
ployed for  the  advertising  of  union  employers  by  such  de- 

i**  Report  of  U.  S.  Industrial  Commission,  1900,  vol.  vii,  p.  119. 
L.  D.  Clark  (The  Law  of  the  Employment  of  Labor,  p.  290)  and 
Adams  and  Sumner  (p.  197)  consider  the  expression  secondary 
boycott  as  synonymous  with  compound  boycott.  It  is  perhaps 
better  to  use  the  expression  compound  boycott  to  describe  boycotts 
against  all  persons  not  involved  in  the  original  dispute,  whether 
those  boycotts  be  secondary,  tertiary  or  even  of  a  higher  order, 
whereas  the  primary  boycott  denotes  that  simple  form  in  which  the 
boycott  is  imposed  directly  upon  the  offending  employer. 

11  G.  Schwittau,  Die  Formen  des  wirtschaftlichen  Kampfes,  p.  237. 


NATURE   OF  THE   BOYCOTT  1 5 

vices  as  the  union  label  and  the  white  and  fair  lists,  is  based 
upon  the  method  of  executing  the  boycott.  Still  another 
classification  is  descriptive  of  the  manner  in  which  the  boy- 
cotted party  is  excluded  from  industrial  intercourse.  Thus 
the  consumption-good  boycott  (Konsumtionsboykott)  is  that 
which  prevents  the  sale  of  the  products  of  the  boycotted 
firm;  the  material-boycott  (Lieferungsboykott)  cuts  off  the 
supply  of  raw  materials;  and  the  complete  boycott  ( Total- 
boy  kott)  constitutes  a  complete  blockade  of  the  boycotted  es- 
tablishment and  bars  the  owners  from  all  industrial  inter- 
course.^^ In  this  study,  while  in  one  form  or  another  all  of 
the  foregoing  classifications  are  employed,  emphasis  will  be 
placed  upon  the  distinctions  arising  from  the  character  of 
the  boycotted  goods  and  from  the  character  of  the  boycotters 
with  particular  regard  to  their  positions  in  industry  and^to 
their  state  of  organization,  rather  than  upon  the  other 
criteria. 

^2  E.  Liechti,  Die  Verrufserklarung  im  modemen  Erwcrbslcbcn, 
speciell  Boykott  und  Arbeitsperre,  p.  39. 


CHAPTER   II 

The  History  of  the  Boycott 

The  frequent  use  of  the  boycott  in  past  as  well  as  m 
contemporary  history  and  analogies  between  the  earlier  and 
more  recent  forms  of  the  boycott  and  between  its  industrial 
and  social  manifestations  have  been  often  indicated.  Thus, 
James  Fitzjames  Stephen,  writing  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 
in  December,  1886,  notes  that  "boycotting  is  only  a  modem 
application  of  the  old  Roman  *  Ignis  et  aquae  interdictio' 
and  is  very  like  the  weapons  of  excommunication  and  inter- 
dict by  which  the  Church  of  Rome  was  able  practically  to 
govern  a  great  part  of  the  world."^  R.  T.  Ely  describes  the 
boycott  imposed  in  1327  by  the  citizens  of  Canterbury,  Eng- 
land, on  the  monks  of  Christ's  church,  wherein  they  deter- 
mine not  to  inhabit  the  prior's  houses  nor  to  "buy,  sell  or 
exchange  drinks  or  victuals  with  the  monastery."^  A  more 
recent  writer  states  that  the  practice  of  boycotting,  defined 
in  its  widest  sense,  "has  been  resorted  to  since  the  dawn 
of  history.  The  Jews  shunned  the  Samaritans ;  the  Pharv 
sees  boycotted  the  Publicans,  as  far  as  social  intercourse 
was  concerned."'  Its  use  is,  also,  to  be  distinguished  in  his- 
tory in  connection  with  many  religious  and  political  episodes. 
Finally,  contributors  to  the  journals  of  labor  unions  cite  the 
boycotts  imposed  by  the  American  colonists  on  British  tea,* 
the  boycotts  on  slave-made  products  of  the  abolitionists, 

1  On  the  Suppression  of  Boycotting,  p.  774. 

3  The  Labor  Movement  in  America,  p.  297. 

3  Laidler,  p.  27. 

*  Attacks  on  the  boycott  by  Senator  Spooner  and  by  Presidents 
Eliot  and  Hadley  drew  from  the  New  York  Call  a  defense  of  the 
boycott  in  which  was  cited  the  pre-revolutionary  boycott  upon  tea. 
"Without  any  sanction  of  the  law  .  .  .  they  [the  American  Colon- 
ists] organized  societies  whose  members  were  pledged  not  to  buy  a 
pound  of  tea  or  any  other  article  on  which  duty  had  been  paid" 
(The  Carpenter,  January,  1909,  p.  17). 

16 


HISTORY  OF  THE  BOYCOTT  1 7 

and  the  quasi-boycotts  waged  in  this  generation  through 
such  agencies  as  temperance  societies  and  consumers' 
leagues. 

Other  writers,  however,  while  admitting  points  of  simi- 
larity between  the  modern  manifestations  of  the  boycott  and 
these  early  forms  of  social  and  religious  ostracism,  have 
sought  to  develop  a  more  rational  line  of  evolution  by  trac- 
ing the  contemporary  boycott  back  to  earlier  forms  of  econ- 
omic or  industrial  pressure.  Accordingly,  such  writers  as 
von  Waltershausen  and  Liechti  describe  as  historical  fore- 
runners of  the  boycott  various  rules  and  practices  of  the 
guilds ;  and  they  use  as  illustration  the  punishment  inflicted 
upon  both  masters  and  journeymen  for  transgressions 
against  guild  rules.  If  a  master  commits  the  transgression, 
"  no  journeyman  may  work  for  him ;  he  may  not  be  present 
at  guild  meetings ;  on  the  market  he  must  not  stand  near  the 
other  masters,  but  must  sell  his  wares  at  a  distance  of  three 
paces ;  if,  however,  the  journeyman  has  committed  the  viola- 
tion, no  other  journeyman  may  work  with  him ;  if  he  wishes 
to  ply  his  trade  in  other  places,  he  is  pursued  from  place  to 
place  by  circulars  "  announcing  to  the  masters  and  journey- 
men his  misdemeanor;  he  is,  therefore,  unable  to  obtain 
work  anywhere  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  guild.' 

Although  some  resemblances  can  be  detected  between  the 
practices  of  modern  labor  organizations  and  those  of  the 
guilds,  the  essential  difference  between  the  constitution  of 
the  trade  union  and  the  guild  makes  the  comparison  gratui- 
tous. The  guild  was  composed  of  both  masters  and  jour- 
neymen, and  exercised,  therefore,  disciplinary  power  over 
both.  Frequently,  also,  the  decrees  and  rules  of  the  me- 
diaeval guild  had  governmental  sanction  and  support.  The 
modern  trade  union,  on  the  other  hand,  is  composed  only  of 
the  employed.  Consequently,  the  rules  and  regulations  of 
trade  unions,  while  not  unlike  those  of  the  guilds  in  form 
and  content,  differ  from  them  in  that  the  employers  have  no 


'^  S.  von  Waltershausen,  Die  Nordamerikanischen  Gewerkschaften, 
pp.  238,  239;  Liechti,  pp.  8,  9. 

2 


1 8  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

part  in  their  formulation  and  cannot  be  bound  by  their  terms. 
Such  devices,  accordingly,  as  the  strike,  the  boycott,  and  the 
closed  shop  are  not  as  in  the  case  of  the  guilds,  measures 
taken  by  an  organization  to  enforce  discipline  among  its 
members,  but  represent  the  weapons  used  by  an  organiza- 
tion to  force  compliance  with  its  demands  from  non-mem- 
bers, who  are  in  some  cases  employers  and  in  others  non- 
union workmen. 

As  employed,  then,  by  the  labor  organizations  of  to-day, 
the  boycott  is  far  from  constituting,  as  did  many  of  the 
earlier  forms  of  religious  and  social  ostracism,  a  spontane- 
ous revulsion  of  feeling  in  large  masses  of  the  people  against 
a  certain  individual,  with  the  result  that  they  determine  to 
cease  all  intercourse  with  him,  social  as  well  as  economic, 
but  it  represents  in  most  cases  only  the  deliberate  exercise 
by  the  officers  and  members  of  the  union  of  a  policy  de- 
signed to  blockade  the  establishments  of  hostile  employers 
by  interfering  with  their  purchase  of  raw  materials  and 
their  sale  of  finished  products.  To  obtain  a  correct  idea, 
therefore,  of  the  factors  responsible  for  the  emergence  and 
frequent  use  of  the  boycott  in  the  industrial  disputes  of  the 
last  century,  it  is  necessary  to  survey  briefly  the  principles 
underlying  the  methods  employed  by  labor  organizations  in 
forcing  concessions  from  employers. 

The  essence  of  trade-union  success  is  its  ability  to  control 
the  labor  supply  in  particular  trades.  If  this  control  is  ade- 
quate, the  union  is  able  to  call  out  its  members  on  strike,  to 
prevent  the  strikers  from  being  replaced  by  non-unionists  by 
the  employment  in  the  dispute  of  such  devices  as  the  joint- 
closed  shop  and  the  extended-closed  shop,^  and  consequently 

6  Where  the  joint-closed  shop  is  in  force  members  of  different 
trades  in  the  same  shop  will  strike  when  an  attempt  is  made  to 
replace  the  members  of  one  union  by  non-union  workmen.  Under 
the  extended-closed  shop  members  of  the  same  trade  union,  work- 
ing for  employers  who  have  several  establishments  in  the  same  city 
or  in  several  cities,  will  strike  when  their  fellow-members  employed 
in  one  of  these  shops  have  been  succeeded  by  scabs.  Thus,  should 
a  building  contractor  employ  non-union  carpenters  on  one  of  his 
building  operations  in  New  York  City,  a  strike  on  that  job  of 
painters,   hod-carriers,  tile  layers,  and  of  twenty  or  more  other 


HISTORY  OP  THE  BOYCOTT  IQ 

to  close  down  an  employer's  establishment  until  he  yields  to 
their  demands.  Furthermore,  in  times  of  industrial  peace 
the  union  often  succeeds  in  preventing  the  employer  from 
building  up  in  his  establishment  a  reserve  army  of  non- 
unionists  by  the  adoption  and  rigid  enforcement  of  various 
closed-shop  rules,  which  are  designed  to  shut  off  the  em- 
ployment in  organized  shops  of  non-union  workmen.  «  Con- 
trol of  the  labor  supply  in  an  industry,  however,  presupposes 
the  power  of  union  officials  to  organize  the  majority  of  the 
workmen  in  that  industry,  and  this  organization  is  not 
always  possible.  When,  therefore,  the  ordinary  methods  of 
organization  have  failed,  or  are  at  the  outset  seen  to  be  in- 
operative, the  union  must  devise  a  supplementary  resource. 
This  resource  has  been,  in  this  country,  the  boycott  of  the 
products  of  unfair  firms^. 

In  consonance  with  this  view  it  has  been  stated  that  "  for 
the  enforcement  upon  employers  of  the  union  trade  regula- 
tions, the  Printers  rely  upon  two  resources :  (a)  the  control 
by  the  union  of  the  workmen  in  the  trade,  (b)  the  pf&wer  to 
divert  patronage  from  employers  who  do  not  observe  the 
regulations."^  And  what  is  true  of  the  Printers  in  this  re- 
spect has  been  true  in  varying  degrees  of  the  great  majority 
of  American  and  of  a  few  foreign  labor  organizations.  The 
inability  of  the  unions  to  regulate  the  conditions  of  manu- 
facture of  a  product  has  led  to  efforts  to  prevent  its  sale. 
From  this  general  analysis  it  follows  that  the  boycott  should 
emerge  under  those  conditions  (i)  where  organization  of  the 
labor  force  is  impossible  and  (2)  where  organization  is 
fraught  with  such  difficulties  as  to  make  it  unlikely. 

(i)   In  modern  industry  practically  the  only  workman 

unions  would  be  precipitated.  Similarly,  should  the  Fuller  Con- 
struction Company,  for  example,  discharge  union  bricklayers  in  San 
Francisco,  the  bricklayers*  and  masons*  union  would  call  out  on 
strike  its  members  employed  by  that  same  company  in  other  cities. 
For  a  fuller  description  of  these  forms  of  the  closed  shop  see  F.  T. 
i  Stockton.  "  The  Closed  Shop  in  American  Trade  Unions,'*  in  Johns 
Hopkins  University  Studies,  ser.  xxix,  no.  3,  chs.  iv,  v. 

7G.  E.  Barnett,  "The  Printers:  A  Study  in  American  Trade 
Unionism,**  in  American  Economic  Association  Quarterly,  third 
series,  vol.  x,  no.  3,  p.  259. 


30  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

whom  it  is  totally  impossible  to  organize  is  the  convict  lab- 
borer.  By  reason  of  his  confinement  under  the  absolute 
control  of  prison  authorities  as  regards  all  of  his  activities, 
he  is  not  susceptible  to  trade-union  pressure.  His  wages, 
his  hours  of  labor,  and  his  working  conditions  are  deter- 
mined not  by  individual  bargaining,  but  by  state  or  municipal 
contracts  in  the  making  of  which  he  has  no  voice.  Work- 
ing, therefore,  as  he  does  for  low  wages  in  active  competi- 
tion with  the  more  highly  paid  free  labor,  he  has  always 
been  recognized  as  constituting  a  menace  to  the  prosperity 
of  union  members.  As  a  result,  either  in  self-defense  or  in 
sympathy  with  the  workmen  in  other  trades  many  labor  or- 
ganizations early  in  their  history  have  declared  boycotts 
upon  prison-made  products.  Unions,  for  example,  like  the 
Coopers,  the  Granite  Cutters,  the  Stone  Cutters,  the  Broom 
Makers,  and  the  Garment  Workers,  whose  products  have 
always  come  into  direct  competition  with  the  products  of 
prison  labor,  have  for  years  carried  on  continuous  boycotts 
upon  prison  products. 

I  (2)  Organization  is  difficult  or  unlikely  when  the  em- 
ployer is  strong  enough  to  resist  union  attempts  to  organize 
his  workmen  and  when  the  employees  are  of  such  a  char- 
acter as  not  to  desire  membership  in  a  labor  union.  Thus, 
for  example,  in  1887  the  Knights  of  Labor  found  it  impos- 
sible to  organize  the  workmen  of  a  large  steel  plant  in  Pitts- 
burgh because  the  employers,  by  an  elaborate  system  of  es- 
pionage, were  able  to  detect  those  workmen  who  had  been 
converted  to  unionism  and  would  dismiss  them  as  soon  as 
they  joined  the  Order.  The  Amalgamated  Association  of 
Iron  and  Steel  Workers  had  also  made  similar  unsuccessful 
attempts  to  organize  the  plant.  As  a  consequence,  a  boycott 
was  imposed  by  the  Knights  of  Labor  on  the  product  of  the 
company .®j   Occasionally  the  resistance  of  an  employer  to 

*  Proceedings  of  the  Eleventh  Regular  Session  of  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  1887,  pp.  1669,  1794.  A  similar 
situation  obtained  in  the  efforts  of  the  metal  polishers'  union  to 
organize  the  National  Sewing  Machine  Company.  For  nine  years 
this  firm  had  been  able  to  prevent  the  organization  of  its  workmen 
by  having  the  "  foremen  of  all  departments  of  the  company  dis- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  BOYCOTT  «I 

the  efforts  of  labor  unions  to  organize  his  employees  is  in- 
creased by  his  membership  in  an  employers'  association. 
The  Upholsterers*  International  Union,  for  example,  tried 
to  organize  the  upholsterers,  carpet  workers,  and  drapers  in 
the  employ  of  several  department  and  dry-goods  stores  in 
New  York.  The  owners  of  these  stores  were  combined  in 
an  employers'  association  that  was  opposed  to  the  organiza- 
tion of  these  workingmen.  The  union  therefore  requested 
the  imposition  of  a  boycott  on  Macy,  Siegel-Cooper,  and 
other  employers  who  were  most  prominent  in  the  delibera- 
tions of  the  employers'  association.® 

Furthermore,  where  the  labor  organizations  are  con- 
fronted not  only  by  hostile  employers,  but  also  by  laborers 
who  are  themselves  indifferent  or  opposed  to  organization, 
the  placing  of  a  boycott  is  inevitable.  This  difficulty  is  en- 
countered in  the  organization  of  woman  and  child  labor,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  unskilled  laborers  in  the  so-called  open 
shops,  on  the  other.  The  argument  often  advanced  by  the 
carpenters  to  justify  their  boycott  of  non-union  trim  is  that 
the  women  and  children  working  in  the  wood  mills  cannot, 
because  of  their  ignorance  and  indifference,  be  organized 
into  effective  labor  organizations  that  could  be  expected  to 
strike  for  improved  working  conditions  and  higher  wagedv* 
A  former  secretary  of  the  New  York  District  Council  of 
the  Carpenters,  writing  of  the  difficulties  which  confront  or- 
ganized labor  in  the  open  shop,  states  that  organized  labor 
"has  come  to  many  citadels  which  cannot  be  carried  by 
the  assault  of  strike.  These  are  'open-shops.'  Parleying 
with  those  within  has  failed.  New  weapons  must  be 
brought  into  play  and  a  siege  begun."^^  And  the  most  ef- 
fective of  the  new  weapons  is  the  boycott. 


charge  men  as  soon  as  they  join  a  labor  union."  Finally,  therefore, 
the  company  was  boycotted  (Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-third 
Annual  Convention  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  1903, 
p.  106). 

•Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-third  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1903,  p.  125. 

10  E.  H.  Neal,  "  The  Open  Shop,"  North  American  Review,  May, 
1912,  p.  618. 


22  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

Most  boycotts,  however,  are  imposed  to  supplement  long 
drawn  out  and  apparently  unsuccessful  strikes.  In  prac- 
tically every  strike  that  is  not  won  during  the  first  few 
weeks,  the  unionists,  fearful  lest  it  be  doomed  to  failure, 
seek  to  exert  additional  pressure  upon  the  employer  by 
boycotting  him.  The  Garment  Workers  entered  in  1895 
upon  a  strike  against  the  Rochester  Clothing  Manufac- 
turers ;  two  years  later,  the  strike  having  by  that  time  be- 
come hopeless,  the  convention  of  the  union  decided  to  wage 
a  vigorous  boycott  against  the  manufacturers  and  in  that 
way  bring  them  to  terms.^^  In  his  report  to  the  convention 
of  1896  the  secretary  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
writes  that  "the  history  of  strikes  and  lockouts  of  late 
years  proves  they  are  not  won,  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases,  because  of  the  lack  of  scabs."^^  but  that  the  boycott 
is  a  most  important  element  in  determining  the  issue."  3 
.\  The  earliest  instances  of  boycott  in  the  United  States  seem 
to  have  been  forms  of  the  sympathetic  strike  or  the  boycott 
on  materials.  The  general  strike  of  the  New  York  cord- 
wainers  in  1809  was  caused  by  the  fact  that  the  employers 
"originally  involved"  had  attempted  to  have  their  goods 
manufactured  in  other  shops,  and  had,  consequently,  pre- 
cipitated strikes  among  the  workmen  of  other  employers, 
who  refused  to  contribute  to  the  production  of  unfair 
goods.^*  In  1827  the  journeymen  tailors  of  Philadelphia 
struck  against  several  master  tailors.  When  the  master 
tailors  later  attempted  to  have  their  work  done  in  other 

^1  Report  of  the  General  Secretary  to  the  Sixth  General  Conven- 
tion of  the  United  Garment  Workers,  1897,  in  the  Garment  Worker, 
January,  1898,  pp.  4-14. 

12  Proceedings,  p.  25. 

IS  "  Es  [the  boycott]  erscheint  als  eine  Erganzung  des  Strikes " 
(v.  Waltershausen,  "  Boycotten,  ein  neues  Kampfmittel  der  Amerik- 
anischen  Werkvereine,"  in  Jahrbucher  fiir  National  Okonomie  u. 
Statistik,  vol.  45,  p.  S)  ;  "The  industrial  boycott  almost  invariably 
but  not  always  or  necessarily,  is  a  phase  of  the  strike  or  lockout, 
but  it  sometimes  exists  apart  from  either"  (J.  Burnett,  "The 
Boycott  as  an  Element  in  Trade  Disputes,"  in  Economic  Journal, 
vol.  i,  p.  164). 
•  i*Hall,  "Sympathetic  Strikes  and  S3mipathetic  Lockouts,"  in 
Columbia  Studies  in  History,  Economics  and  Public  Law,  vol.  x, 
p.  35. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   BOYCOTT  23 

shops,  the  strikers  succeeded  in  persuading  the  journeymen 
there  employed  to  refuse  to  do  any  work  while  the  orders 
of  the  unfair  firms  were  being  received.^^'  Within  the 
category  of  boycotts  on  materials  falls  the  action  taken  by 
the  journeymen  stone  cutters  of  New  York,  when  in  1830 
they  imposed  a  boycott  on  convict-cut  stone.  "  Most  of  the 
stone  cutters,"  they  said,  "have  entered  into  a  voluntary 
agreement  to  refrain  from  working  stone  from  the  states* 
prisons,  and  deputations  have  been  sent  to  those  who  con- 
tinued to  work  such  stone."^® 

Apparently  one  of  the  first  instances  of  the  boycott  on 
commodities,  where  the  appeal  was  to  the  workman  not  as  a 
producer  but  as  a  consumer,  was  the  boycott  imposed  in 
Baltimore  in  1833  at  a  meeting  of  "  the  citizens  generally  ". 
upon  master  hatters  who  had  combined  to  cut  the  wages  of 
their  journeymen.^^  In  October  of  the  same  year  the  As- 
sociation of  Printers  of  New  York  decided,  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  an  employer,  to  publish  the  "names  of  all  employ- 
ing printers  who  do  not  pay  the  scale  of  prices."  Similar 
lists  were  published  in  one  form  or  another  until  April,  1840. 
For  several  months  in  1836  a  fair,  as  well  as  an  unfair,  list 
was  published  in  the  Union  and  Transcript,  a  penny  daily 
labor  paper,  published  by  the  Printers'  Union  during  a  few 
months  of  that  year.  In  April,  1840,  however,  the  union 
was  sued  for  libel,  and  the  publication  of  the  unfair  list 
ceased.^^  Although  the  printing  of  these  lists  may  have 
been  designed  to  divert  patronage  from  unfair  employers, 
it  is  not  entirely  clear  that  the  prime  motive  for  their  ad- 
vertisement was  not  to  keep  union  laborers  from  working 
for  these  employers  rather  than  to  persuade  consumers  to 
withdraw  their  patronage. 

^^  Third  Annual  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Labor,  p.  11 22. 
16  New  York  Sentinel  and  Workingman's  Advocate,  June  30,  1830, 

p.  3. 

I'^J.  R.  Commons  and  H.  L.  Sumner,  Documentary  History  of 
American  Industrial  Society,  vol.  vi,  p.  100. 

18  G.  A.  Stevens,  "  New  York  Typographical  Union  No.  6,"  in 
Annual  Report,  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  191 1,  Part  I, 
pp.  145,  153- 


«4  ^THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE  UNIONS 

In  1850  the  boycott  again  appeared  in  New  York  City  in 
connection  with  the  labor  movement  that  resulted  in  the  or- 
ganization of  many  of  the  workingmen  in  that  city.  Con- 
spicuous in  this  movement  to  organize  the  laborers  of  New 
York  were  the  tailors,  who  in  March,  1850,  formed  the 
Journeymen  Tailors'  Union.  In  the  summer  of  that  year 
a  central  association  called  the  Industrial  Congress  and  com- 
posed of  representatives  of  the  unions  was  established.  At 
a  session  of  this  Congress  on  July  30  a  resolution  was 
adopted  boycotting  the  clothing  firms  that  were  antagonistic 
to  the  Tailors'  Union.  The  resolution,  which  was  intro- 
duced by  the  masons,  provided  that,  "as  tailors  of  New 
York  are  on  strike  for  wages,  we  the  Industrial  Congress 
will  not  patronize  any  store  or  shop  that  does  not  pay  the 
proper  prices  to  their  workmen,  and  that  we  report  the 
same  to  our  respective  societies.  Be  it  further  resolved 
that  the  tailors  be  requested  to  publish  the  names  and  num- 
bers of  such  as  do  not  pay  the  prices  demanded."^* 

These  comparatively  early  instances  of  the  boycott  are 
of  small  importance  in  the  American  Labor  movement. 
Imposed  sporadically  when  organization  succeeded  in  get- 
ting a  foothold  in  different  parts  of  the  country  and  dis- 
carded when  it  collapsed,  the  boycott  did  not  become  an  ef- 
fective and  important  weapon  of  labor  unions  until  1880. 
But  from  that  year  to  the  present  time,  first  under  the 
Knights  of  Labor  and  then  under  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor,  it  has  had  an  almost  continuous  history  of  suc- 
cessful employment  as  an  acknowledged  and  a  universal 
method  of  trade-union  pressure., 

-(  vAlmost  without  warning  the  boycott  suddenly  emerged  in 
1880  to  become  for  the  next  ten  or  fifteen  years  the  most 
effective  weapon  of  unionism.  There  was  no  object  so 
mean  and  no  person  so  exalted  as  to  escape  its  power.  Side 
by  side,  with  equal  prominence,  the  Knights  of  Labor  boy- 
cotted clothing  manufacturers  and  their  draymen,  insignifi- 

i»G.  A.  Stevens,  pp.  1-3,  10,  11. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   BOYCOTT  25 

cant  country  grocers  and  presidential  candidates,  insipid  / 
periodicals  and  the  currency  of  a  nation,  our  national  bank-  ? 
notes.2®  J  Although  no  statement  can  be  found  to  the  effect 
that  it'was  the  policy  of  the  Order  to  employ  the  boycott 
as  its  principal  means  of  aggression,  and  although  the  reso- 
lution providing  that  the  Order  "  adopt  a  general  system  of 
boycotting  instead  of  strikes  "  was  rejected  by  the  conven- 
tion of  1884,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  in  actual  prac- 
tice the  Knights  of  Labor  were  primarily  a  boycotting  or- 
ganization. Disregarding  even  the  numerous  instances  of 
actual  boycotts,  the  very  tone  of  their  articles  and  their  atti- 
tude of  threatened  withdrawal  of  support  or  patronage  from 
almost  all  of  their  opponents  attests  the  existence  of  a  defi- 
nite boycotting  policy  to  which  all  other  resources  were 
subsidiary.^ 

The  spectacular  appearance  at  this  time  of  the  boycott 
and  its  subsequent  popularity  may  be  ascribed  to  the  in- 
fluence of  several  factors.  Its  "sudden  emergence  in  1880 
as  an  important  means  of  enforcing  the  demands  of  the 
unions  upon  recalcitrant  employers"  was  primarily  "due  . 
to  the  solidarity  given  the  trade  union  movement  by  the 
growth  of  the  Knights  of  Labor."^^  Furthermore,  it  ^was 
perhaps  true  of  the  period  immediately  before  and  after 
1880  that  trade-union  sentiments  had  not  as  yet  been  dis- 
seminated to  a  marked  extent  and  that  the  organization  of 
labor  had  to  be  carried  on  for  the  most  part  among  work- 
men who,  like  many  of  the  present-day  immigrant  laborers, 
had  not  yet  learned  the  desirability  of  continuous  member- 
ship in  labor  organizations.  To  the  large  numbers  of  un- 
skilled workmen  who  were  now  for  the  first  time  expe- 
riencing the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  organization, 
the  monthly  or  weekly  payment  of  dues,  through  which 
alone  could  be  built  up  the  war  funds  indispensable  for  the 
effective  management  of  strikes,  was  at  once  new  and  dis- 

*•*  Address   of  the  Grand   Master  Workman  to  the  Nineteenth 
Regular  Session  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  ICnights  of  Labor, 
1895,  pp.  4,  104. 
\  21  Barnett,  The  Printers,  p.  269. 


26  fHE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

tasteful.  With  funds  insufficient  for  the  universal  pay- 
ment of  strike  benefits  and  inadequate  to  provide  the  ex- 
penses of  transporting  scabs  from  the  se^t  of  strikes  to 
places  where  there  were  no  conflicts  in  progress,  it  is  small 
wonder  that  the  boycott  was  often  invoked  to  supplement 
the  unsuccessful  strike.  In  addition  to  these  internal  fac- 
tors favorable  to  the  use  of  the  boycott,  it  had  become  easier, 
because  of  the  growing  concentration  of  population  in  cities 
and  the  increasing  division  of  labor,  to  replace  strikers  with, 
non-union  workmen,  thus  again  rendering  more  unfavor- 
able the  chances  for  successful  strikes.^^  Appearing,  there- 
fore, in  1879  and  1880  as  a  compact  labor  organization,  com- 
posed in  the^  main  of  workmen  ignorant  of  the  difficulties 
and  necessities  of  organization;  not  oversupplied  with 
funds;  finding  it  necessary  to  employ  spectacular  and  ef- 
fective, but  cheap,  methods  of  aggression ;  controlling,  how- 
ever, a  not  insignificant  purchasing  power,  the  Knights  of 
Labor  immediately  seized  in  1880  upon  the  boycott  as  a, 
unique  and  logical  source  of  strength.  *"^ 

boycotting  under  the  Knights  of  Labor  falls  roughly  into 
three  periods.  The  first  period  from  the  beginning  to  1885 
was  one  of  indiscriminate,  unregulated,  local  boycotting. 
The  second  from  1885  to  about  1892  was  characterized  by 
the  central  control  and  careful  execution  of  the  boycott; 
and  the  third  period  was  marked  by  the  extension  of  the 
boycott,  still  under  a  central  but  much  weakened  control, 
to  new  fields  of  industrial  warfare. 

(i)  Members  of  labor  organizations  generally  hold  that 
it  is  an  individual's  right  to  use  his  patronage  as  he  sees  fit ; 
it  follows,  they  contend,  that  any  number  of  individuals 
may  collectively  agree  to  withdraw  their  patronage  from 
hostile  firms.  The  right  to  withdraw  patronage  and  to  re- 
quest others  to  withdraw  it  is,  therefore,  a  species  of  in- 
alienable right  which  workingmen  are  exceedingly  reluc- 
tant to  relinquish  to  the  control  of  a  distant  central  office. 

22  V.  Waltershausen,  Die  Nordamerikanischen  Gewerkschaften, 
p.  241. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   BOYCOTT  27 

Such  was  apparently  the  prevailing  opinion  in  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  Order  in  the  first  few  years  of  its  history.  Ac- 
cordingly, practically  all  boycotts  emanated  from  the  local 
and  district  assemblies,  while  their  enforcement  and  regu- 
lation were  left  in  the  same  hands.  There  was,  to  be  sure, 
the  general  provision  adopted  in  1882  that  "no  firm  or  indi- 
vidual employer  shall  be  subject  to  general  boycotting  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  majority  of  the  executive  board." 
The  general  terms  of  this  provision,  however ;  its  failure  to 
define  general  boycotting,  and  the  fact  that  the  members  of 
the  Order  did  not  yet  fully  comprehend  the  desirability  of  a 
restricted  and  regulated  system  of  boycott,  rendered  this 
provision  valueless.  Local  and  district  assemblies  boycotted 
when  they  pleased  and  what  they  pleased ;  firms  fair  to  one 
local  assembly  would  be  boycotted  by  a  neighboring  as- 
sembly. 

Such  a  situation  elicited  from  the  grand  master  work- 
man before  the  assembly  of  1885  the  recommendation  that, 
inasmuch  as  the  general  assembly  had  not  heretofore  en- 
acted adequate  legislation  for  the  regulation  of  boycotting 
throughout  the  Order,  "  the  power  to  decide  upon  the  wis- 
dom of  embarking  in  a  boycotting  crusade  should  be  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  Executive  Board."  This  recommenda- 
tion met  with  considerable  opposition  on  the  part  of  the 
local  assemblies.  To  them  the  organization  on  the  spot 
was  most  competent  to  judge  when  and  where  a  boycott 
should  be  levied.  Accordingly,  the  proposed  amendment  to 
the  constitution  providing  that  "only  the  Executive  Board 
have  the  power  to  issue  a  boycott"  was  rejected.  Never- 
theless, this  period  of  unrestrained  local  boycotting  was 
brought  to  a  close  by  the  adoption  at  the  same  convention 
of  two  rules:  one  granting  local,  district,  and  state  assem- 
bhes  the  right  to  initiate  boycotts  that  did  not  effect  other 
localities;  the  second  providing  that  whenever  any  local  or 
district  assembly  desired  to  initiate  a  boycott  that  might 
affect  other  localities,  "  the  facts  must  be  gath?red  and  pre- 
sented to  the  Executive  Board  which  after  a  careful  exam- 
ination shall  have  the  power  to  institute  a  general  boycott." 


38  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

(2)  In  1885,  then,  the  Knights  of  Labor  entered  upon  a 
period  of  boycotting  characterized  by  the  subordination  of 
local  to  national  authorities  in  the  matter  of  control.  The 
first  boycott  emanating  directly  from  the  general  executive 
board  and  operating  throughout  the  Order  was  in  that  year 
imposed  upon  the  Dueber  Company,  a  large  watchcase  man- 
ufactory of  Newport,  Kentucky.^'  With  such  vigor  and 
persistency  was  this  boycott  waged  that  all  doubts  that  may 
have  previously  existed  as  to  the  desirability  of  a  system 
of  centrally  imposed  boycotting  were  at  once  dispelled. 
Indeed,  so  systematically  were  future  general  boycotts  oper- 
ated that  the  casual  correspondence  of  the  previous  period 
was  succeeded  by  such  a  stream  of  letters  and  instructions 
that  the  governmental  mechanism  of  the  Order  was  ex- 
tended in  1887  by  the  establishment  of  a  "  Boycotting  De- 
partment." 

In  this  period,  too,  were  perfected  the  details  involved  in 
the  announcement  of  boycotts,  in  the  tracing  of  boycotted 
goods,  and  in  the  local  enforcement  of  the  boycott,  matters 
in  which  the  Knights  attained  a  degree  of  skill  that  has  not 
since  been  surpassed.  The  articles  published  in  their  jour- 
nals advising  members  that  hostilities  with  certain  firms 
had  been  begun  and  that  a  boycott  upon  their  products  was 
in  order  were  masterpieces  of  that  form  of  persuasive  com- 
position; facts  concerning  the  sources  and  destinations  of 
unfair  commodities  were  often  printed  in  the  journal  with 
the  most  minute  details.  Nor  was  this  condition  of  central 
control,  with  its  ability  to  concentrate  the  forces  of  the 
Order  upon  single  firms  and  its  greater  efficiency  in  man- 
agement, without  its  fruits.  On  the  capitulation  of  the  Lig- 
gett and  Meyers  Tobacco  Company  in  June,  1893,  follow- 
ing a  six  years'  boycott,  the  editor  of  the  journal  asserted 
that  "up  to  date  the  Knights  of  Labor  had  never  lost  a 
boycott;  and  powerful  and  wealthy  as  an  enemy  may  be,  it 
is  only  a  question  of  time  when  the  end  must  come  either 
in  bankruptcy  or  surrender,"^*  a  judgment  which,  while 

2»  Proceedings,  1885,  p.  78. 

2*  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  June  8,  1893,  p.  i. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  BOYCOTT  «9 

,5 

perhaps  not  to  be  taken  literally,  contained  more  than  a 
modicum  of  truth. 

(3)  From  1892  to  1900  the  Order  of  the  Knights  of 
Labor  was  in  a  moribund  state.  Tom  by  internal  dissen- 
sions following  the  defeat  of  Powderly  as  grand  master 
workman,  and  further  weakened  by  the  vigorous  attacks  of 
its  rival,  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  the  Order,  de- 
spite its  frequent  boasts  of  greater  strength  and  increased 
success,  was  rapidly  declining  in  membership  and  in  power. 
Its  proceedings  had  become  a  mass  of  criminations  and  re- 
criminations, its  journals  the  forum  for  the  propagation  and 
discussion  of  political  and  social  panaceas.  Although  boy- 
cotting notices  were  published  during  this  period,  they  were 
not  so  extensive  as  in  the  period  before  and  were  sporadic 
rather  than  continuous  in  appearance.  But  what  the  boy- 
cott against  the  customary  foes  lacked  in  vigor  was  amply 
compensated  for  by  the  imposition  of  boycotts  on  the  pro- 
ucts  of  new  adversaries,  the  members  of  the  trade  unions 
now  affiliated  with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 

Early  in  its  history  the  relation  of  the  Knights  of  Labor 
to  existing  trade  organizations  had  been  one  of  tolerance, 
perhaps  induced  by  the  belief  that  the  trade  organization 
was  as  likely  to  be  useful  to  them  as  they  were  to  be  useful 
to  it.  Unless,  therefore,  the  trade  unions  were  antagonis- 
tic to  the  Order,  it  was  inclined  to  be  friendly.  In  con- 
formity with  this  spirit,  the  Knights  had  adopted  in  1885, 
in  connection  with  other  rules  designed  to  regulate  the  use 
of  the  boycott,  the  principle  that  when  the  boycott  of  a 
trade  organization  was  endorsed  by  the  district  assenibly, 
all  the  local  assemblies  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  as- 
sembly must  also  endorse  it  and  take  proper  measures  to 
have  their  members  "  strictly  adhere  "  to  it. 

This  peaceful  state  of  affairs  was  not  to  endure  long. 
Probably  during  the  whole  history  of  the  Knights  of  Labor, 
and  certainly  as  early  as  1884,^^  there  were  occasional  dis- 
putes between  trade  organizations  and  the  Knights.     In  the 

2»  Proceedings,  1884,  p.  642. 


30  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

main  these  disputes  arose  from  the  circumstance  of  the 
competition  between  two  labor  organizations  for  the  control 
of  workingmen  and  their  positions.  Thus,  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  which  contained  in  its  organization  local  assemblies 
of  iron  molders,  boycotted  in  1888  the  Fuller,  Warren  Stove 
Company ;  at  the  same  time  the  journal  of  the  Iron  Molders* 
Union  contained  an  article  designating  that  company  as  a 
friend  of  organized  labor. ^^  The  inevitable  result  of  such 
a  situation  was  the  appearance  of  signs  of  hostility  in  both 
organizations;  in  the  Iron  Molders  because  the  boycott 
harmed  an  employer  who  from  their  standpoint  was  fair, 
and  in  the  Knights  because  the  Iron  Molders,  by  proclaim- 
ing the  fairness  of  the  boycotted  stove  manufacturer,  suc- 
ceeded in  destroying  the  effectiveness  of  their  boycott. 

An  analogous  situation  arose  when  either  the  trade  union 
or  the  Knights  of  Labor  would  adopt  a  label,  which  would 
be  for  a  time  the  only  label  of  organized  labor  to  be  used 
on  that  commodity.  In  the  meanwhile  another  organiza- 
tion would  spring  up,  adopt  a  label,  and  place  it  on  the  same 
commodity,  and  in  consequence  the  labels  would  become 
competitors  and  their  sponsors  antagonists.  Out  of  such  a 
situation  arose  the  dispute  between  the  Knights  of  Labor 
and  the  Cigar  Makers'  Union.  In  February,  1884,  the  gen- 
eral executive  board  of  the  Knights  had  adopted  a  label 
which  was  almost  immediately  used  by  certain  assemblies 
of  cigar  makers;  and  "early  in  1886  the  Cigar  Makers*  In- 
ternational Union  protested  to  the  Knights  of  Labor  that 
assemblies  of  cigar  makers  had  given  *  white  labels'  to 
manufacturers  in  whose  shops  union  cigar  makers  were  on 
a  strike."27  In  that  same  year  the  Cigar  Makers'  Interna- 
tional Union  sent  men  and  circulars  through  the  Order, 
requesting  the  members  "  to  boycott  all  goods  except  those 
bearing  the  International  blue  label,"  and  charging  that  the 
grand  master  workman  and  the  rest  of  the  general  execu- 
tive board  had  "cooperated  in  the  organization  of  scabs 

28  Journal  of  United  Labor,  April  21,  1888,  p.  2614. 
'^  27  E.  R.  Spedden,  "  The  Trade  Union  Label,"  in  Johns  Hopkins 
University  Studies,  ser.  xxviii,  no.  2,  pp.  17,  19. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   BOYCOTT  3 1 

into  the  Order."28  Jhe  dispute  culminated  in  an  edict  by 
the  general  assembly  of  the  Knights  in  1886  requiring  all 
cigar  makers  who  were  members  of  the  Knights  of  Labor 
to  withdraw  from  the  Cigar  Makers'  Union."  After  that 
the  Cigar  Makers,  now  secretly  and  now  openly,  boycotted 
cigars  bearing  the  label  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  and  the 
latter  retaliated  by  boycotting  goods  which  bore  the  blue 
label  of  the  Cigar  Makers. 

The  experience  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  with  the  Cigar 
Makers'  Union,  with  the  exception  of  the  complications  due 
to  the  use  of  two  labels,  was  repeated  after  1890  with  even 
greater  disaster  to  the  Order.  In  most  cases  the  trade 
unions  of  Garment  Workers  and  Brewery  Workmen,  aided 
and  encouraged  by  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  led 
the  fight  against  the  Knights.  For  example,  when  a  cloth- 
ing firm  in  1896  replaced  cutters  belonging  to  the  Knights 
of  Labor  with  members  of  the  Garment  Workers*  Union, 
the  Knights  of  Labor  imposed  a  boycott  on  the  product  of 
the  firm.^°  Again,  in  the  following  year  the  Brewery 
Workmen's  Union  boycotted  a  Rochester  brewery  because 
that  company  employed  members  of  the  Knights  of  Labor ; 
the  Knights  responded  by  boycotting  those  breweries  which 
employed  members  of  the  Brewery  Workmen's  Union." 
With  a  view  to  a  peaceful  adjustment  of  the  disputes  be- 
tween these  organizations  a  harmony  conference,  composed 
of  representatives  from  the  Knights  of  Labor  and  the  trade 
organizations,  was  held  in  1894.  The  conference,  however, 
recommended  the  withdrawal  of  the  Knights  in  practically 
all  industries  where  trade  unions  were  organized.  The 
representatives  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  opposed  the  report, 
and  the  conference  came  to  naught.^^  These  boycotts  and 
counter-boycotts  continued  to  be  imposed  until  about  1900, 

28  Proceedings  of  the  Tenth  Regular  Session  of  the  General  As- 
sembly of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  1886,  p.  137. 
*•  Spedden,  p.  19. 

•^Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  April  9,  1896,  p.  2. 
"  Ibid.,  April  29,  1897,  p.  i. 
8"  American  Federationist,  July,  1894,  p.  108. 


^  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

when  the  internal  warfare  ceased  with  the  total  collapse  of 
the  Knights  of  Labor  movement. 

The  series  of  railroad  strikes  or  boycotts  carried  on  by 
the  Knights  of  Labor  and  by  the  railway  brotherhoods  rep- 
resented important  episodes  in  the  history  of  the  boycott 
between  1885  and  1895.  One  of  the  earliest  of  these  was 
the  strike  on  the  Union  Pacific  in  1885,  when  the  Knights 
of  Labor  refused  to  assist  in  moving  any  of  the  rolling- 
stock  of  the  Wabash  System.  Similar  boycotts  on  rolling- 
stock  were  imposed  from  time  to  time.  In  1894  this  form 
of  boycott  reached  its  climax  in  the  famous  strike  of  the 
American  Railway  Union.  This  union  was  an  organiza- 
tion of  the  employees  of  all  branches  of  the  railway  service 
which,  under  the  leadership  of  Debs,  had  succeeded  the 
"  Supreme  Council  of  the  United  Order  of  Railway  Em- 
ployes, a  loose  federation  of  railway  unions,  disbanded  in 
June,  1892."^*  When,  in  the  summer  of  1894,  certain  em- 
ployees of  the  Pullman  Palace  Car  Company  went  on  strike, 
the  "American  Railway  Union  determined  to  support  the 
strikers,  and  for  this  purpose  ordered  its  members  to  refuse 
to  work  upon  any  train  to  which  a  Pullman  car  was  at- 
tached. As  nearly  all  the  railroads  centering  at  Chicago 
were  under  contract  with  the  Pullman  Company  to  draw 
its  sleeping  cars  and  parlor  cars,  a  conflict  immediately  re- 
sulted between  the  railroads  and  their  employees,  and  a 
strike  of  vast  proportions  among  train  hands  followed."** 
With  the  loss  of  this  boycott  and  the  imprisonment  of  Debs 
and  other  officers  of  the  union  by  the  United  States  authori- 
ties, the  union  soon  disintegrated,  and  the  railroad  boycott 

33 w.  Kirk,  "National  Labor  Federations  in  the  United  States,'* 
in  Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies,  ser.  xxiv,  nos.  9-10,  p.  124. 

»*W.  H.  Dunbar,  "Government  by  Injunction,"  in  Economic 
Studies  of  the  American  Economic  Association,  vol.  iii,  no.  i,  p.  14. 
The  Knights  of  Labor  supported  the  boycott  of  the  American  Rail- 
way Union  by  notifying  the  travelling  public  that  those  who  patron- 
ized Pullman  coaches  would  be  boycotted  by  the  Order  (Journal  of 
the  Knights  of  Labor,  July  5,  1894,  p.  i).  For  a  more  detailed 
description  of  the  Pullman  boycott,  see  Laidler,  p.  100. 


HISTORY   OF   THE   BOYCOTT  33 

never  again  attained  a  conspicuous  position  in  the  history 
of  the  boycotts  of  American  labor  organizations. 

From  1881  to  1890  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
played  an  unimportant  role  as  a  boycotting  agency,  and  was, 
indeed,  overshadowed  in  all  respects  by  the  activities  of 
the  Knights  of  Labor.  After  1890,  in  conjunction  with 
several  of  the  larger  national  unions,  it  assumed  charge 
of  the  campaign  against  the  Knights  that  brought  about 
the  defeat  of  that  organization.  The  boycotting  life  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  can  be  conveniently  dated 
from  the  practical  disappearance  about  1895  of  the  Knights 
of  Labor  as  a  factor  in  the  American  labor  movement.  It 
is,  of  course,  true  that  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
boycotted  before  1895  ^^^  ^^^^  the  Knights  of  Labor  con- 
tinued to  live  and  to  boycott  for  a  few  years  after  1895. 
That  year,  however,  marks  approximately  the  turning-point 
in  the  fortunes  of  the  two  organizations ;  by  the  middle  of 
the  decade  the  supremacy  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  was  definitely  asserted,  and  it  was  left  free  to  pro- 
ceed against  new  foes. 

The  history  of  the  boycott  under  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  is  in  reality  a  history  of  the  boycott  as  em- 
ployed by  its  constituent  national  unions.  The  importance 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  as  a  boycotting 
agency  has  often  been  overestimated  because  of  the  failure 
to  observe  that  the  actual  waging  of  the  boycotts,  with  the 
exception  of  the  advertisement  in  the  American  Federation- 
ist,  rests  with  the  unions  themselves.  Nor  does  the  Amer- 
ican Federation  of  Labor,  beyond  some  slight  control  over 
the  central  labor  unions  and  its  ability  to  restrict  the  pub- 
lication of  names  on  its  "  We  Don't  Patronize  "  list,  possess 
much  power  in  regulating  the  placing  of  boycotts  by  the 
national  unions. 

Even  as  early  as  the  eighties,  before  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor  was  in  existence,  such  unions  as  the  Brew- 
ery Workmen  and  the  Typographical  Union  carried  on  suc- 

3 


34  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

cessful  boycotts.  By  1890  the  Brewery  Workmen,  with 
the  support  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  had  won  several  im- 
portant boycotts  that  effected  the  organization  of  large  non- 
union plants.  The  history  of  boycotts  from  1890  on  has 
been  a  story  of  the  placing  by  national  unions  of  great  boy- 
cotts, the  facts  of  which  were  made  known  through  the 
publications  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor.  The 
United  Hatters,  for  example,  from  about  1896  to  1902  sys- 
tematically boycotted  firms  unfair  to  the  union.  The  Metal 
Polishers  boycotted,  among  others,  the  National  Cash  Reg- 
ister Company  and  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Company; 
the  Garment  Workers,  the  firms  belonging  to  the  Rochester 
and  Chicago  Employers*  Associations.  The  Carpenters 
have  since  1896  been  carrying  on  a  campaign,  which  in  ef- 
fectiveness has  rarely  been  surpassed  in  this  country,  against 
the  use  of  unfair  building  trim.  The  list  could  be  extended 
to  include  such  unions  as  the  Bakers  and  Confectioners, 
the  Coopers,  the  Printers,  the  Bookbinders,  and  others,  only 
a  small  fraction  of  whose  boycotts  have  appeared  on  the 
unfair  list  in  the  American  Federationist. 

The  influence  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  has 
been  exerted  in  inducing  in  its  members  a  greater  conserva- 
tism in  the  employment  of  the  boycott.  Practically  the  great 
majority  of  its  legislative  acts  in  the  period  from  1893  to 
1908  have  been  designed  to  control  the  too  frequent  use  of 
the  boycott.  At  the  convention  of  1894  the  executive  coun- 
cil remarked  "the  impracticability  of  the  indorsement  of 
too  many  applications  of  this  sort.  There  is  too  much 
diffusion  of  effort  which  fails  to  accomplish  the  best  re- 
sults."^® Thereafter,  every  few  years  saw  the  adoption  of 
new  rules  restricting  the  endorsement  of  boycotts.  Efforts 
at  amicable  adjustment  must  be  made  first  by  the  national 
union  concerned  and  later  by  the  executive  council  of  the 
Federation;  the  number  of  unfair  firms  of  each  national 
union  that  might  appear  on  the  "  We  Don't  Patronize  "  list 
must  be  limited  to  three;  the  unions  whose  boycotts  the 

35  Pr&ceedings  of  the  Fourteenth  Annual  Convention,  1894,  p.  25. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   BOYCOTT  35 

Federation  has  endorsed  must  make  quarterly  reports  of 
the  progress  of  the  boycotts  and  of  the  efforts  put  forth  in 
furthering  them;  the  central  labor  union  is  not  permitted 
to  originate  boycotts  or  to  endorse  boycotts  without  con- 
sulting the  national  unions  whose  interests  are  involved; 
efforts  are  made  to  prevent  the  imposition  of  boycotts  upon 
firms  that  have  somewhere  in  their  employ  union  working- 
men.  If  there  are  added  to  these  formal  rules  the  state- 
ments of  union  officials  and  members  urging  a  greater  care 
and  conservatism  in  the  application  of  the  boycott,  a  correct 
idea  will  be  had  of  the  place  of  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  as  a  boycotting  agency. 

These  measures  were  adopted  not  for  the  reason  that  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  desired  to  restrict  the  use 
of  the  boycott  because  it  was  opposed  to  that  weapon  as  a 
method  of  industrial  warfare,  but  because  it  foresaw  as  a 
result  of  its  uncontrolled  application  a  marked  loss  in  ef- 
fectiveness. In  spite  of  the  fact,  however,  that  similar  re- 
strictive tendencies  have  developed  to  a  marked  degree 
among  the  national  unions  of  the  country,  there  has  prob- 
ably been  between  the  years  1895  ^^^  19^8  a  gradual  abso- 
lute increase  but  a  relative  decrease  in  the  number  of  boy- 
cotts in  this  country.  Indeed,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe 
that  in  its  broad  general  outlines  the  quantitative  course  of 
the  boycott  has  been  very  different  from  that  of  the  strike, 
with  these  qualifications,  however,  that  public  opposition 
and  the  interference  of  the  courts  have  combined  to  limit 
significantly  the  frequency  of  boycotts.^' 

3«  Strike  statistics  for  the  United  States  are  available  only  until 
1905.  They  show  that  there  has  been  an  increase  since  1881  in  the 
absolute  number  of  strikes,  but  a  slower  increase,  or  even  a  de- 
crease, in  their  number  relatively  to  the  growth  of  industry.  It  is 
to  be  expected  that,  as  the  number  of  strikes  increases,  the  neces- 
sity for  the  use  of  the  boycott  should  become  greater  and  the 
number  of  boycotts  should  also  increase.  Inasmuch,  however,  as 
the  boycott  is  for  the  most  part  employed  as  an  auxiliary  to  those 
strikes  that  are  of  long  duration  and  that  have  been  apparently  un- 
successful, the  boycotts  should  in  absolute  frequency  lag  consider- 
ably behind  strikes.  Statistics  of  the  average  duration  of  strikes 
and  the  proportion  of  successful  strikes  since  1881  show  marked 
tendencies    neither    of    increase   nor    of    decrease.    There    would. 


36  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

The  decision  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1908,  that  caused  the  cessation  of  the  pubHcation  bj 
trade  unions  of  their  unfair  Hsts  marks  a  turning-point  in 
the  history  of  the  boycott.  Even  before  that  decision,  to 
be  sure,  the  use  of  this  device  had  been  hampered  by  legal 
interference.  But  this  verdict  of  the  highest  court  in  the 
land,  exposing  trade  unionists  to  the  payment  of  immense 
damages,  and  interpreted  by  the  legal  advisers  of  the  Amer- 
ican Federation  of  Labor  as  precluding  the  advertisement 
thereafter  of  the  names  of  unfair  firms,  imposed  upon  the 
boycott  a  much  greater  legal  disability  than  it  had  suffered 
through  the  issue  of  injunctions  by  the  state  courts.  Once 
for  all,  the  principles  were  laid  down  as  authoritative 
throughout  the  whole  country  by  a  court  of  the  highest 
prestige,  first,  that  a  boycott  by  a  labor  organization  on  the 
product  of  a  firm  doing  an  interstate  business  constitutes  an 
interference  with  interstate  commerce,  and,  second,  that 
trade  unions  are  subject  to  action  under  the  Sherman  Anti- 
Trust  Act  and  to  the  payment  of  damages  for  the  use  of 
such  pressure.  The  effect  of  the  decision  has  been  un- 
doubtedly to  reduce  greatly  but  not  to  eliminate  entirely 
the  use  of  the  boycott.  The  labor  organizations  have  not, 
however,  surrendered  their  whole  control  over  the  pur- 
chasing power  of  their  members,  but,  as  is  indicated  by  the 
jgreat  increase  in  the  use  of  the  union  label  since  1908,  they 
have,  at  least  in  some  trades,  exercised  this  control  in  a 
more  peaceful,  if  less  effective  manner. 

The  treatment  has  thus  far  been  concerned  with  the  his- 
torical development  of  the  boycott  by  American  labor  or- 

therefore,  be  little  fluctuation  in  the  frequency  of  the  boycott  due 
to  these  causes.  On  the  other  hand,  the  growing  hostility  of  the 
courts  in  recent  years  must  have  caused  an  appreciable  decrease 
in  the  number  of  boycotts.  A  conservative  opinion  would,  there- 
fore, note  a  slow  increase  in  the  absolute  frequency  of  the  boycott 
and  a  decrease  in  its  relative  frequency  (Twenty-first  Annual  Re- 
port of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor  on  Strikes  and  Lockouts,  1906). 
See  also  G.  G.  Huebner,  "  The  Statistical  Aspect  of  the  Strike,"  in 
Twelfth  Report,  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  Wisconsin,  1905-1906, 
p.  75. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   BOYCOTT  37 

ganizations  upon  materials  and  commodities.  For  a  long 
time  labor  unions  have  been  imposing  upon  candidates  for 
public  offices  polit^c^^l  boycotts,  wherein  they  publicly  an-X 
nounce  opposition  to  certain  candidates  and  request  friends 
and  sympathizers  to  boycott  them  by  voting  for  their  op- 
ponents. Under  the  Knights  of  Labor  this  was  a  favorite 
form  of  the  boycott,  made  possible  by  the  existence  in  the 
large  membership  of  the  Order  of  a  substantial  "labor 
vote."  Whenever  a  candidate  for  public  office  would  in 
any  way  associate  himself  with  unfair  establishments  or 
persons,  or  would  exhibit  his  hostility  to  organized  labor 
by  publicly  opposing  measures  which  they  advocated,  or 
vice  versa,  he  would  promptly  be  boycotted.  Thus  the 
boycott  on  Blaine,  carried  on  during  his  presidential  cam- 
paign by  the  Typographical  Union,  with  the  aid  of  the 
Knights  of  Labor,  was  imposed  because  Blaine  did  not  re- 
pudiate the  support  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  a  newspaper 
unfair  to  the  Typographical  Union. 

This  intense  political  activity  of  the  Knights  of  Labor 
in  supporting  and  opposing  men  and  measures,  which  was 
later  widened  to  include  extensive  political  programs,  con- 
tributed ultimately  to  their  downfall.  The  reaction  against 
such  activity  set  in  with  the  growth  of  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor,  which  in  its  early  days  seems  to  have 
^ade  little  use  of  the  political  boycott.  Indeed,  Professor 
'A.  C.  Pigou,  in  commenting  on  the  supersession  of  the 
Knights  of  Labor  by  the  American  Federation  of  Labor, 
notes  that  political  measures  work  best  through  localities, 
whereas  economic  pressure  is  exerted  most  freely  through 
trades,  thus  explaining  the  greater  political  activity  of  the 
jCnights.^^  Since  1900,  however,  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor,  finding  itself  and  its  constituent  unions  harassed 

tsT  Principles  and  Methods  of  Industrial  Peace,  p.  12.  Kirk,  also, 
rites:  "Reference  has  been  made  to  the  claim  repeatedly  ad- 
vanced that  the  industrial  union  has  a  strategic  advantage  over 
the  trade  union  in  bargaining  and  that  one  element  in  this  supe- 
riority is  the  control  exercised  by  a  central  authority  over  a  larger 
and  more  representative  body  of  work  people  in  a  single  locality. 
The  same  causes  operate  to  increase  the  effectiveness  of  the  in-- 
dustrial  union  in  political  activity"  (p.  146). 


38  THE   BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

by  injunctions  and  its  activities  greatly  hindered  by  what  it 
considers  the  anti-labor  prejudices  of  the  courts,  has  not 
hesitated  to  support  and  to  advise  constituent  unions  to  sup- 
port certain  ameliorative  measures  before  Congress  and  be- 
fore state  legislatures,  and  in  addition  has  waged  political 
boycotts  upon  public  officials  whose  opposition  to  these  labor 
measures  has  been  notoriously  bitter .^^  Of  such  a  charac- 
ter were  the  vigorous  boycotts  launched  against  the  candi- 
dacies of  Congressmen  Cannon  and  Littlefield,  also  the 
negative  boycott  on  the  Republican  national  candidates  in 
1908,  when  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  offered  semi- 
official support  to  the  Democratic  party,  which  had  inserted 
into  its  platform  an  anti-injunction  plank  satisfactory  to 
the  labor  interests.  Many  of  the  constituent  unions  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  also  occasionally  employ  the 
poHtical  boycott;  thus  the  Garment  Workers  had  in  their 
constitution  a  provision  stating  that  it  was  the  duty  of  all 
members  "  to  refuse  to  vote  for  any  political  candidate  re- 
gardless of  party  who  was  not  friendly  to  the  cause  of 
labor,"^^ — a  general  provision  which  could,  when  necessary, 
be  easily  particularized  in  time  and  place.  Other  unions 
such  as  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners  and  the  United 
Brewery  Workmen  endeavored  to  swing  their  workmen  to 
the  support  of  socialistic  candidates.***  In  spite  of  these 
political  activities,  the  membership  of  present-day  Amer- 
ican labor  organizations,  divided  as  it  is  into  the  socialistic 
and  anti-socialistic  camps,  lacks  the  political  solidarity  that 

38 "  The  increasingly  frequent  use  of  the  injunction,  after  the 
middle  of  the  nineties,  irritated  them  [i.  e.,  the  American  work- 
men] and  awakened  in  them  a  feeling  of  bitterness  toward  the 
courts.  The  limitations  placed  upon  the  use  of  the  boycott,  the 
attitude  of  the  courts  toward  labor  legislation,  the  use  of  the  Sher- 
man Anti-Trust  Act  as  a  weapon  against  labor  organizations  and 
disappointing  experiences  with  a  number  of  politicians  of  the  old 
parties — all  these  circumstances  disposed  the  workmen  to  listen  to 
the  preachers  of  political  action"  (L.  Levine,  "Development  of 
Syndicalism  in  America,"  Political  Science  Quarterly,  September^ 
1913,  p.  456). 

8»  Constitution,  1900,  p.  40. 

*oKirk,  p.  147. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   BOYCOTT  39 

is  a  prerequisite  to  the  successful,  general  application  of  the 
political  boycott. 

The  boycott  has  not  only  been  weakened  by  legal  pro- 
hibitions, but  its  efficiency  has  been  greatly  reduced  by  the 
aggressions  of  certain  employers'  associations.  The  meas- 
ures adopted  by  such  associations  have  been  in  the  main 
designed  to  aid  the  boycotted  employer  during  the  period  of 
the  boycott.  The  Brewers*  Association  adopted  in  1886 
the  rule  that  no  member  of  the  association  should  sell  "  beer, 
porter,  or  ale  "  to  any  of  the  customers  of  another  member 
who  was  involved  in  a  boycott  ;*^  in  this  way  the  consumers 
could  not  obtain  a  substitute  for  the  boycotted  beer  and 
would,  therefore,  be  forced  to  raise  the  siege.  Similarly, 
the  members  of  the  Stove  Founders'  National  Defense  As- 
sociation endeavored  to  aid  a  boycotted  employer  by  pro- 
viding that,  when  the  "goods  of  any  member  of  the  asso- 
ciation are  boycotted,  none  of  the  members  of  the  union 
originating  the  boycott  should  be  given  employment  by  any 
member  of  the  Association."**  A  more  direct  method  of 
counteracting  the  effects  of  a  trade-union  boycott  was  illus- 
trated in  the  plan  of  the  Chicago  Employers'  Association, 
an  organization  of  3000  members,  divided  into  about  50 
distinct  trades  and  businesses ;  this  association  proposed  to 
place  any  boycotted  member  upon  a  fair  list,  and  then  to' 
jhave  "the  members  of  the  whole  federation  give  to  that 
firm  all  the  business  "  possible.** 

In  recent  years,  however,  the  employers'  association 
which  has  rendered  the  most  effective  service  in  de- 
molishing the  boycott  and  which  proceeds  not  by  indirect 
methods  but  by  directly  attacking  the  legality  of  the  boy- 
cott is  the  American  Anti-Boycott  Association,  organized 
in  October,  1902.     After  the  beginning  of  the  Loewe  boy- 

41  H.  Schliiter,  The  Brewing  Industry  and  The  Brewery  Work- 
ers* Movement  in  America,  p.  144. 

^  M2  F.  W.  Hilbert,  "  Employers*  Associations  in  the  United  States,*' 
in  Studies  in  American  Trade  Unionism,  edited  by  Hollander  and 
Barnett,  p.  196. 

"Ibid.,  p.  211. 


40  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

cott,  a  small  group  of  hat  manufacturers  addressed  "  letters 
to  all  employers  who  were  on  the  unfair  list  or  had  been 
boycotted."  When  many  favorable  answers  were  received, 
Mr.  Daniel  Davenport  was  sent  to  interview  the  manufac- 
turers to  whom  letters  had  been  written.  With  these  pre- 
liminaries the  association  was  organized.**  Its  attitude 
toward  the  boycott  is  reflected  in  the  following  report  of  a 
former  secretary  of  the  association :  "  The  boycott  must  be 
regarded  as  that  un-American  and  reprehensible  practice  of 
organized  labor  whereby  the  products  of  a  given  manu- 
facturer or  any  individual  are  held  up  to  denunciation,  con- 
tempt, and  proscription  under  a  spirit  of  blackmail,  merely 
because  in  the  opinion  of  a  prejudiced  class,  whose  verdict 
for  this  very  reason  may  be  biased  and  therefore  unjust, 
the  manufacturer  or  workman  is  regarded  as  unfair  to 
labor.  Such  a  practice  is  foreign  to  principles  of  fair  deal- 
ing and  equity  which  w^  love  to  regard  as  the  spirit  of  our 
nation."" 

In  its  activities  the  association  has  proceeded  along  four 
lines.  It  has,  in  the  first  place,  sought  to  have  the  law  of 
the  boycott  interpreted  by  carrying  test  cases  into  court. 
On  account  of  the  great  expense  involved  in  carrying  cases 
through  the  various  state  and  federal  courts  an  individual 
employer  is  ordinarily  timid  about  venturing  on  long  periods 
of  litigation;  in  that  event  the  fight  is  carried  on  by  the 
American  Anti-Boycott  Association.  It  was,  for  example, 
conspicuously  instrumental  in  bringing  to  court  both  the 
Danbury  Hatters  and  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Com- 
pany cases,  and  finally  succeeded  in  the  former  case  in  ob- 
taining from  the  Supreme  Court  a  most  important  decision. 
The  association  next  tries  to  have  the  interpretations  of 
the  court  applied  to  future  violations,  a  course  which  it  has 
pursued  with  considerable  success  in  its  prosecutions  against 
the  Carpenters*  Union  for  boycotting  trim.  Third,  it  makes 
appeals  for  public  sympathy  by  encouraging  the  widespread 

**  Convention   Bulletin  of  the  American   Anti-Boycott  Associa- 
tion, March,  1908,  p.  5. 
**  Ibid.,  February,  1907.    Report  of  Secretary  Boocock. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   BOYCOTT  4I 

publication  in  newspapers  and  periodicals  of  the  accounts 
of  individual  boycotts.*^  Finally,  it  seeks  to  preserve  the 
present  state  of  the  law.  To  accomplish  this  latter  object 
the  association  employs  at  Washington  a  lobbyist  whose 
duty  it  is  to  counteract  the  influence  of  labor  sympathizers 
and  to  prevent  the  passage  of  such  acts  as  would,  for  ex- 
ample, weaken  the  power  of  the  injunction  and  exempt 
labor  organizations  from  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Act.*'' 
The  American  Anti-Boycott  Association  has  been  singu- 
larly successful  in  achieving  its  purpose.  By  procuring 
important  judicial  interpretations  adverse  to  the  boycott,  by 
contributing  to  the  more  stringent  enforcement  of  laws,  by 
scattering  its  discussions  broadcast,  and,  finally,  by  pre- 
venting amendments  to  existing  laws,  it  has  been,  since  its 
organization,  the  most  potent  enemy  of  the  boycott. 

/  The  boycott  as  employed  by  labor  organizations  has  been 
/almost  exclusively  an  American  institution;  Schwittau,  in 
\  a  recent  book,  calls  the  United  States  the  "  classic  home  of 
the  boycott."*^  Occasional  instances  of  its  use  in  foreign 
countries,  notably  England  and  Germany,  have  been  re- 
corded. In  Germany  the  use  of  the  boycott  has  had  an 
important  political  aspect;  thus  many  of  the  early  boycotts 
were  imposed  upon  inns,  because  their  proprietors  refused 
to  furnish  rooms  for  meetings  of  the  Social  Democratic 
party. *^  In  1894,  however,  the  workmen  in  Berlin  imposed 
a  boycott  upon  the  members  of  a  Brewers'  Employers'  As- 
sociation ;  this  boycott  was  so  effective  that  it  elicited  from 
the  secretary  of  that  association  the  judgment  that  the 
emergence  of  the  boycott  added  to  the  existing  stock  of 
measures  to  be  used  in  social  and  industrial  warfare  a  new 

*6  A  typical  publication  of  the  Association  is  a  pamphlet  contain- 
ing an  account  of  the  boycott  against  D.  E.  Loewe  and  Co.  The 
title  of  the  pamphlet  is  "  Million  Against  One — A  Conspiracy  to 
Crush  the  *  Open  Shop ' ",  and  it  is,  further,  announced  as  being 
"  Published  by  the  American  Anti-Boycott  Association  in  the  cause 
of  Individual  Liberty."     Second  edition,  1904. 

^"^  Convention  Bulletin,  February,  1907. 

*8  Op.  cit.,  p.  240. 

*®  Liechti,  p.  21 ;  see  also  Schwittau,  p.  246. 


42  THE   BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

and  extraordinarily  effective  weapon.*'**    It  is,  nevertheless, 
seldom  used  by  the  German  labor  organizations. 

The  same  is  true  in  England ;  the  boycotts  that  are  there 
imposed,  however,  resemble  closely  the  American  boycotts. 
The  printers,  for  example,  publish  from  time  to  time  a 
"black  list"  or  "closed  list"  bearing  the  names  of  firms 
hostile  to  the  union. '^^  Other  boycotts  bear  a  close  analogy 
to  the  American  boycotts  on  materials.  Thus  Geldart  cites 
a  case  of  a  dispute  of  a  union  with  a  master  butcher  in 
Belfast ;  the  union  here  "  induced  other  butchers  who  were 
in  the  habit  of  taking  meat  from  him  to  cease  to  do  so  by 
threatening  to  call  out  unionists  who  were  working  for 
them."''*  Few  accounts  exist  of  boycotts  in  other  coun- 
tries, but  it  is  Hkely  that  they  are  used,  although  their  ex- 
tent cannot  be  estimated.  Liechti  describes  a  boycott  in 
Switzerland  following  a  strike  of  the  cigar  makers,  who  in 
articles  in  the  labor  papers  requested  working  men  not  to 
smoke  the  products  of  the  unfair  firm.**^  There  was  re- 
ported also  in  191 2  an  interesting  instance  in  Italy  of  the 
imposition  of  a  boycott  on  materials.  The  local  labor  union 
of  an  Italian  town  imposed  a  boycott  upon  the  owner  of 
the  marble  quarry,  whose  workmen  had  gone  on  a  strike. 
As  soon  as  the  boycott  notice  was  published  the  quarry  was 
unable  to  get  sand  necessary  for  cutting  marble  because 
the  workmen  in  a  neighboring  town,  from  which  the  sand 
was  usually  shipped,  refused  to  load  sand  destined  for  the 
boycotted  quarry .°* 

50  Schwittau,  p.  246. 

01  Ibid.,  p.  248. 

52 "  Report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  Trades  Disputes,"  in 
Economic  Journal,  vol.  xvi,  p.  199. 

53  Op.  cit.,  p.  30. 

5*  Giornale  degli  Economisti  e  Rivista  di  Statistica,  November- 
December,  1912,  p.  520. 


CHAPTER   III 
The  Boycott  on  Materials 

In  a  suggestive  section  in  his  book  on  the  Principles  and 
Methods  of  Industrial  Peace,^  Professor  Pigou  gives  as  one 
of  the  two  factors  in  industrial  disputes  the  "demarcation 
of  function'*  between  the  employer  and  the  unions.  By 
this  he  means  that  industrial  disputes  arise  when  labor 
unions  attempt  to  interfere  with  the  management  of  in- 
dustrial establishments.  He  further  discusses  under  the 
demarcation  of  function  those  disputes  which  arise  when 
"the  sources  from  which  an  employer  draws  his  material 
or  the  destination  of  his  finished  product "  are  brought  by 
the  union  into  question.  It  is  with  a  description  of  the  at- 
tempts of  the  American  trade  unions  to  dictate  to  em- 
ployers the  choice  of  the  sources  and  destinations  of  ma- 
terials that  a  discussion  of  the  boycott  on  materials  deals. 

The  salient  characteristic  of  the  boycott  on  materials  is 
its  appeal  to  organized  labor.  Its  essence  is  organized  dis- 
approval of  certain  implements  and  materials  with  which 
men  work.  For  various  reasons,  contingent  upon  the  ex- 
tent and  character  of  organization  and  dependent  upon  the 
characteristics  of  industry,  large  numbers  of  workmen 
massed  into  compact  bodies  for  the  purpose  of  self-protec- 
tion have  found  it  necessary  from  time  to  time  to  exercise, 
among  others,  one  of  their  most  important  functions — the 
deliberate  examination  and  selection  of  the  things  upon 
which  they  labor,  a  selection  which  carries  with  it  the 
patent  necessity  of  rejecting  products  which  have  been  man- 
ufactured under  conditions  objectionable  to  organized  labor 
and  whose  continued  manufacture  is  interpreted  by  such 
labor  as  constituting  a  menace  to  its  welfare.    Just  as  work- 

^P.  38. 

43 


44  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

men  take  umbrage  at  unsanitary  shops  and  threaten  strike 
when  they  are  told  to  work  beside  a  non-union  fellow- 
laborer,  so  they,  with  less  vehemence,  perhaps,  announce 
their  opposition  to  unfair  raw  materials.  Choice  of  fellow- 
workman,  choice  of  working  conditions,  choice  of  imple- 
ments and  materials,  constitute  a  series  whose  elements 
differ  markedly  in  degree,  but  not  perceptibly  in  kind.  The 
motives  which  actuate  a  man  to  choose  carefully  sanitary 
workshops  and  desirable  associates  are  not  difficult  to  dis- 
cern ;  his  reasons,  however,  for  discriminating  against  tools 
and  goods,  manufactured  in  many  cases  in  remote  districts, 
are  not  so  clear  and  therefore  require  elucidation. 

Two  influences  can  explain  the  origin  of  practically  all 
boycotts  imposed  upon  materials  and  exercised  wholly  by 
companies  of  organized  workingmen.  They  are  (i)  the 
desire  for  work,  and  (2)  sympathy  for  fellow- workmen. 
(i)  By  the  desire  for  work  is  not  meant  the  inarticulate 
strivings  of  unorganized  individuals  for  employment,  but 
that  desire,  which  becomes  potent  through  organization, 
to  obtain  work  that  is  now  in  the  hands  of  outsiders  or  to 
retain  work  upon  which  aggressive  attacks  and  significant 
inroads  are  being  made  by  intruders.  More  particularly 
this  influence  has  manifested  itself  in  three  forms:  (a)  in 
the  boycott  upon  prison-made  goods,  (b)  in  the  boycott 
upon  goods  manufactured  by  new  machinery,  and  (c)  in 
the  embargo  upon  foreign  products. 

(a)  As  early  as  1830  the  journeymen  stone  cutters  of 
New  York  assembled  to  protest  against  the  importation  of 
cut  stone  from  Sing  Sing  and  other  prisons  on  the  grounds 
that  "  it  is  sent  in  large  quantities  to  the  New  York  Market 
and  competes  with  the  stone  of  free  labor;"  and  they 
finally  resolved  "not  to  fit,  alter,  or  do  any  work  on  any 
stone  worked  by  convicts."^  From  1830,  then,  and  perhaps 
earlier  if  the  records  were  extant,  the  pages  of  American 
labor  journals  contain  frequent  references  to  boycotts  im- 
posed upon  the  products  of  convict  labor,  always  imposed 

2  New  York  Sentinel  and  Workingman's  Advocate,  July  3,  1830, 
p.  I. 


BOYCOTT  ON    MATERIALS  45 

with  the  express  intention,  of  course,  of  wresting  this  work 
from  convicts  and  placing  it  in  the  hands  of  organized 
free  labor.^ 

(b)  The  invention  of  machinery  and  the  consequent  divi- 
sion between  two  classes  of  laborers  of  processes  that  had 
before  its  invention  been  under  the  control  of  one  class 
give  occasion  for  the  second  group  of  boycotts.  The  inven- 
tion, for  instance,  of  the  planer,  a  machine  for  cutting  soft 
stone,  resulted  in  the  loss  by  the  stone  cutters  of  the  labor 
required  for  transforming  the  rough  stone  into  a  partially 
finished  state,  since  this  work  could  be  more  economically 
done  by  an  unskilled  laborer  operating  a  machine.  As  a 
consequence,  the  Journeymen  Stone  Cutters'  Association 
for  many  years  bitterly  fought  the  advance  of  machine-cut 
stone  by  requiring  its  members  not  to  finish  or  set  such 
stone.* 

The  experience  of  the  stone-cutters  has  been  repeated 
with  slight  variations  in  other  trades.  At  their  convention 
of  1901  the  Plumbers,  Gas  Fitters  and  Steam  Fitters  dis- 
cussed the  encroachments  of  the  factory  workers  upon  the 
work  of  the  plumbers,  encroachments  which  were  attribut- 
able to  the  increasing  application  of  machinery  to  processes 
formerly  the  property  of  hand  labor.  In  this  trade  it  had 
become  customary  for  manufacturers  of  plumbing  supplies 
to  furnish  "  fixtures  complete  in  every  detail,"  thus  giving 
to  factory  hands  the  labor  which  had  hitherto  been  per- 
formed by  plumbers.  To  prevent  the  continuance  of  this 
practice,  a  resolution  was  presented  to  boycott,  by  refusing 
to  install,  fixtures  that  had  been  fully  completed  in  the  fac- 
tories.' The  carpenters'  boycott  on  building  trim,  for  which 
it  is  extremely  difficult  to  assign  a  single  cause,  is  ascribed 
by  the  editor  of  the  International  Wood  Worker  to  the  fear 
of  the  carpenters  lest  the  mill  workers  gradually  assume 
control  of  work  that  is  now  performed  by  carpenters.    "The 

3  Constitution,     Journeymen     Stonecutters'     Association,     1892, 
Art.  xi. 
*  Stone  Cutters'  Journal,  May,  1901,  p.  13 ;  August,  1901,  p.  14. 
5  Plumbers,  Gas  and  Steam  Fitters'  Journal,  October,  1901,  p.  52. 


46  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

officers  of  the  Carpenters  affect  to  believe,"  he  writes,  "  that 
if  they  can  get  control  of  all  the  factories,  they  could  ef- 
fectively prevent  a  great  many  innovations  in  factory  prac- 
tise that  lessen  the  amount  of  work  for  the  carpenter  to 
execute  on  the  buildings."^  To  obtain  this  control,  there- 
fore, the  carpenters  boycott  the  products  of  those  mills 
which  they  are  unable  to  unionize. 

(c)  The  embargo  on  foreign  goods  is  either  a  manifes- 
tation of  that  "spirit  of  local  monopoly"  against  which, 
according  to  Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb,  "trade  unionism 
has  had  constantly  to  struggle,"^  or  constitutes  a  guarding 
of  districts  in  which  high  wages  prevail  against  the  tendency 
of  manufacturers  to  have  parts  or  the  whole  of  products 
manufactured  in  low-wage  districts  or  localities.  In  the 
early  history  of  the  Stone  Cutters'  Union  this  policy  of 
local  discrimination  ran  rampant.  The  Buffalo  local  union 
in  1895  incorporated  in  its  constitution  a  rule  prohibiting 
the  importation  of  cut  stone  to  that  city  without  regard  to 
the  wages  or  hours  in  the  locality  where  the  stone  was  par- 
tially worked.®  In  1894,  too,  a  public  meeting  was  held  in 
New  York  City  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  "local  re- 
striction upon  the  importation  of  foreign  made  building 
materials."® 

Early  in  its  history  the  local  union  of  coopers  in  New 
York  declared  that  union  men  in  other  localities  who  manu- 
factured barrels  for  the  New  York  market  must  demand 
for  that  work  a  price,  freight  included,  that  would  make 
the  price  of  their  barrels  equal  to  that  of  the  New  York 
product.  This  declaration  of  policy  carried  with  it  the  im- 
plied threat  that  the  members  of  the  New  York  local  union 
would  refuse  to  trim  barrels  manufactured  in  those  places 
where  the  rate  of  wages  was  appreciably  below  that  of  New 

*  The  International  Wood  Worker,  May,  1907,  p.  6. 

7  Vol.  i,  p.  ^z. 

s  Stone  Cutters*  Journal,  March,  1895,  p.  3. 

»  The  Carpenter,  April,  1894,  p.  3.  The  local  union  of  carpenters 
of  Butte,  Montana,  decided  in  1896  that  its  members  should  not 
"handle  building  material  manufactured  outside  the  city,  so  long 
as  members  are  idle  who  are  competent  to  manufacture  the  ma- 
terial at  home"  (ibid.,  February,  1896,  p.  11). 


BOYCOTT  ON    MATERIALS  47 

York.^*^  A  similar  policy  has  been  frequently  employed  by 
local  unions  of  stone  cutters.  The  New  York  local  union 
reported  in  1895  that  it  was  "prepared  to  stop  all  cut  stone 
from  coming  to  that  city  that  is  being  cut  at  less  than  New 
York  wages."^^  In  1902  the  Philadelphia  branch  of  stone 
cutters  boycotted  stone  from  Hummelstown  because  it 
claimed  that  the  members  of  the  Hummelstown  branch  re- 
ceived a  lower  rate  of  wages  than  its  members.*^ 

Within  the  last  decade  or  two,  however,  influences  have 
been  at  work  that  have  made  unnecessary  in  some  cases  and 
impolitic  in  others  the  imposition  of  boycotts  upon  prison- 
made,  machine-made,  and  foreign  materials.  The  con- 
tinued agitation  for  the  abolition  of  convict  labor  on  goods 
that  enter  into  competition  with  free  labor  and  the  telling 
attacks  upon  the  private  contract  system  have  already  to 
some  extent  lessened  the  necessity  for  the  boycott  on  prison 
products.  The  increased  strength  of  trade  unionism  in  the 
United  States,  resulting  in  the  control  of  newly  invented 
machines  by  the  union,  and  the  adoption  of  more  liberal 
policies  toward  the  introduction  of  machinery,  not  to  speak 
of  the  futility  of  boycotting  the  products  of  machines  that 
are  economically  cheaper  than  the  methods  they  replace, 
have  had  their  effect  on  the  number  of  boycotts  of  the 
second  class. ^'  Finally,  the  rise  in  the  power  of  the  na- 
tional union,^*  the  substitution  of  district  and  national  sys- 
tems of  wage  agreements  to  replace  the  old  local  agree- 
ments,^*^  and  the  fact  that  "just  in  proportion  as  Trade 

10  Coopers'  Journal,  September,  1871,  p.  363. 

^^  Stone  Cutters'  Journal,  March,  1895,  p.  14. 

12  Ibid.,  March,  1902,  p.  7 ;  see  also  ibid.,  January,  1906,  p.  10. 

*8  The  Glass  Bottle  Blowers'  Association  has,  for  example,  fre- 
quently agitated  the  use  of  a  label  on  hand  made  bottles,  thus 
indirectly  boycotting  the  machine  product.  The  recognition,  how- 
ever, of  the  futility  of  opposing  such  an  efficient  machine  as  the 
automatic  glass  bottle  blowing  machine  has,  among  other  reasons, 
prevented  the  adoption  of  a  label. 

i*G.  E.  Barnett,  "The  Dominance  of  the  National  Union  in 
American  Labor  Organization,"  in  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics, 
vol.  xxvii,  p.  455. 

15  G.  E.  Barnett,  "  National  and  District  Systems  of  Collective 
Bargaining  in  the  United  States,"  in  Quarterly  Journal  of  Eco- 
nomics, vol.  xxvi,  p.  425. 


48  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

I 

Unionism  is  strong  and  well  established,  we  find  the  old 
customary  favoritism  of  locality  replaced  by  the  impartial 
enforcement  of  uniform  conditions  upon  all  districts  alike,"^® 
all  these  tendencies  have  combined  to  make  local  monopoly 
and_the  boycott  dependent  upon  it  relics  of  the  past. 

(2)  All  boycotts  cannot,  however,  be  traced  to  these 
three  sources.  In  fact,  materials  are  often  stigmatized  as 
unfair  not  because  union  members  see  in  their  manufacture 
encroachments  upon  their  own  fields  of  labor,  but  because  it 
has  become  a  not  infrequent  practice  for  union  members  to 
refuse  to  work  upon  materials  that  have  been  manufactured 
by  workingmen  receiving  low  wages  and  working  long  hours 
in  unsanitary  shops.  Because  of  sympathy  aroused  by  a 
knowledge  of  the  conditions  under  which  such  materials 
are  produced,  coupled  with  an  appeal  for  aid  by  the  ag- 
grieved workmen,  it  frequently  happens  that  the  members 
of  strong  unions  will  reject  materials  to  whose  conditions 
of  manufacture  they  could,  so  far  as  their  own  working 
conditions  are  concerned,  afford  to  be  totally  indifferent. 
That  these  feelings  of  sympathy  for  fellow-workmen  have 
in  recent  years  become  intensified  is  indicated  by  the  gradual 
changes  in  the  type  of  labor  organization  that  obtains  in 
the  United  States,  considered  with  special  reference  to  the 
tendencies  of  extensive  organization  and  trade  federation. 
As  a  result  of  these  tendencies,  industry  is  now  more  ex- 
posed to  the  imposition  of  the  boycott  on  materials  than  it 
was  either  under  the  industrial  form  of  labor  organization 
as  practised  by  the  Knights  of  Labor  or  under  the  strictly 
trade  organizations  that  dominated  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  in  its  early  history.  A  more  detailed  discus- 
sion of  this  aspect  of  the  problem  will  be  given  at  the  close 
of  this  chapter. 

The  classification  of  boycotts  on  materials  to  be  employed 
here  rests  upon  the  conception  of  industry  as  being  of  a 
given  complexity  and  composed  of  a  number  of  strata,  more 

i^Webb,  vol.  i,  p.  79. 


BOYCOTT  ON   MATERIALS  49 

or  less  homogeneous.  The  character  and  number  of  these 
strata,  depending  as  they  do  upon  such  general  forces  as  the 
extent  of  the  division  of  labor,  means  of  integration  or 
transportation  facilities,  and  more  generally  upon  the  status 
of  industrial  technic,  need  not  delay  us  long.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  point  out  that  these  industrial  layers,  present 
different  degrees  of  organization.  In  the  building  trades, 
for  example,  it  is  the  higher  strata,  composed  of  such  trades 
as  those  of  bricklayers,  carpenters,  plasterers,  plumbers,  and 
others,  that  are  well  organized;  whereas  the  laborers  in  a 
lower  stratum,  such  as  the  brickmakers  and  woodmill 
workers,  are  poorly  organized.  In  the  stove  industry,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  iron  molders — lower-process  workers — 
are  well  organized,  but  the  stove  mounters  are  not  so  well 
organized.^^  These  factors,  if  they  can  be  distinguished  in 
individual  instances  of  boycotts,  should  throw  considerable 
light  upon  the  causes  operating  to  produce  a  boycott.  There 
are  accordingly  four  classes  of  boycotts  that  can  be  distin- 
guished on  the  basis  of  this  classification;  the  backward, 
forward,  lateral,^^  and  transportation  boycotts. 

(i)  The  backward  boycott  is  defined  as  the  refusal  by 
men  in  the  higher  processes  of  manufacture,  or  in  the 
higher  strata  of  industry,  to  work  on  or  with  material  which 
in  the  next  lower  process  of  manufacture,  or  in  the  next 
lower  stratum  of  industry,  is  made  by  non-union  workmen. 
Perhaps  the  best-known  boycott  of  this  group  is  that  of  the 
United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners  on  building 
trim  manufactured  in  non-union  mills.  The  ultimate  end 
of  the  boycott  is  the  elimination  of  women  and  children 
from  mill  work^^ — particularly  the  dangerous  work  con- 

^"^  The  concepts  "  lower  and  higher  processes "  may  be  made 
clearer  to  the  reader  if  replaced  by  their  equivalents,  "earlier  and 
later  processes." 

18  D.  H.  Macgregor,  Industrial  Combination,  p.  95.  Macgregor 
uses  the  terms  backward,  forward,  and  lateral,  to  describe  the  three 
forms  of  integration  employed  by  firms,  "that  have  hitherto 
operated  at  one  distinct  stage  of  the  whole  process  of  supply,"  in 
"undertaking  additional  processes." 

18  The  Machine  Woodworker,  August,  1892,  p.  104. 

4 


50  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

nected  with  the  care  of  machinery, — the  regulation  of  the 
hours  of  labor,  and  the  institution  of  an  adequate  mini- 
mum wage  for  mill  workers.  The  motives  of  the  carpen- 
ters* union  for  undertaking  the  organization  of  mill  workers 
have  been  variously  interpreted.  The  carpenters  them- 
selves, through  their  official  spokesmen,  justify  the  boycott 
on  the  ground  of  a  broad  humanitarianism,^^  as  simply  a 
result  of  their  desire  to  alleviate  the  conditions  of  labor  in 
the  mills.  Some,  on  the  other  hand,  are  inclined  to  hold 
the  fear  of  competition  by  the  mill  workers  as  the  con- 
trolling motive  ;^^  still  others,  believing  with  an  officer  of  the 
union  that  "  the  carpenter  of  to-day  may  be  the  mill-worker 
of  tomorrow,"^^  find  in  the  boycott  an  evidence  of  wise 
foresight;  whereas  the  skeptical  see  as  the  motive  only  a 
desire  for  expansion  and  increased  membership  and  reve- 
nue. The  real  motive  is  in  all  probability  a  composite  of 
the  four. 

The  boycott  began  early  in  1896  with  a  notice  by  the 
New  York  unions  to  builders,  architects,  and  manufacturers 
of  trim  work  "cautioning  them  not  to  award  further  con- 
tracts to  outside  firms  as,  unless  proof  is  given  that  the 
trim  has  been  constructed  under  strict  union  rules,  they 
would  at  any  time  refuse  to  handle  it."^^  The  early  agita- 
tion against  unfair  trim  was  directed  principally  against 
the  mills  of  New  York  State  and  New  York  City.  With 
the  aid  of  the  New  York  City  Building  Trades  Council, 
which  called  sympathetic  strikes  whenever  non-union  car- 
penters were  employed  to  install  unfair  trim,  the  boycott 
rapidly  became  effective.^*  Each  successive  organizer's  re- 
port indicates  the  bringing  into  line  of  more  mills  that  sup- 
plied the  New  York  market.  By  1908,  twelve  years  after 
the  inception  of  the  boycott,  189  of  the  230  woodworking 
mills  in  New  York  City  had  been  organized,  and  in  1910 
Vice-President    Quinn    reported   the    organization    of    40 

20  Neal,  p.  618. 

21  Proceedings,  1910,  p.  86. 

22  Report  of  the  President,  in  Proceedings,  1906,  p.  58. 

23  The  Carpenter,  January,  1896,  p.  4. 
2*  Ibid.,  October,  1898,  pj).  4,  14. 


BOYCOTT  ON    MATERIALS  5 1 

more."  An  organizer  operating  in  the  East  reported  in 
1909  that  all  mills  furnishing  trim  and  interior  decorations 
for  New  York  City,  with  the  exception  of  4,  were  working 
eight  hours  a  day.^®  Of  the  200,000  members  of  the  United 
Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners,  one  fifth,  or  40,000, 
were  in  1912  millmen,  whereas  the  remaining  four  fifths 
were  outside  carpenters  ;*^  and  of  the  3814  mills  and  shops 
that  were  in  1908  within  the  territorial  jurisdiction  of  the 
Carpenters'  Union,  982  employed  exclusively  members  of 
the  United  Brotherhood.*^ 

So  effective  has  been  the  boycott  in  New  York  that  "  ex- 
perienced builders  of  the  Bronx,  Manhattan,  and  Brooklyn 
have  all  testified  that  it  is  practically  impossible  to  erect  a 
building  in  any  part  of  that  territory  except  the  outskirts 
of  Brooklyn  unless  the  builder  employs  union  men  exclu- 
sively on  those  buildings  in  the  organized  trades.  If  the 
builders  endeavor  to  escape  the  restrictions  upon  the  use  of 
non-union  material  by  employing  non-union  carpenters  to 
handle  such  material,  they  are  confronted  by  a  general 
strike  of  all  trades  employed  on  that  building  until  such 
time  as  the  non-union  carpenters  are  discharged  and  the 
union  carpenters,  who  refuse  to  handle  the  material,  are 
restored.  Such  is  the  provision  of  the  constitution  of  the 
Building  Trades  Council.  This  evidence  is  uncontradicted 
and  shows  that  union  carpenters  not  only  refuse  to  handle 
the  non-union  material,  but  prevent  the  employment  of  car- 
penters who  will  be  allowed  to  handle  it."*®  These  methods 
effectually  eliminate  non-union  building  trim  from  the  New 
York  market. 

The  same  efforts  have  not  been  made  to  exclude  unfair 
trim  from  other  cities.     Because  New  York  represents  the 

25  Brief  on  Motion  for  Preliminary  Injunction,  Paine  Lumber 
Co.,  etc.,  V.  United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners,  et  als^ 
p.  7. 

26  The  Carpenter,  November,  1909,  p.  14. 
27Neal,  p.  622. 

28  Proceedings,  1908,  p.  25. 

2»  Plaintiff's  Brief  for  Permanent  Injunction,  Louis  Bossert  & 
Son  V.  Frederick  Dhuy,  etc,  et  als.,  p.  21. 


52  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

stronghold  of  the  carpenters'  union,  and  because  the  Build- 
ing Trades  Council  has  there  exhibited  an  activity  in  aid- 
ing the  carpenters  that  it  probably  would  not  exhibit  in  a 
city  like  Baltimore,  for  example,  and  finally  because  ex- 
pensive legal  complications  have  attended  the  prosecution 
of  the  boycott  in  New  York,  no  systematic  attack  on  unfair 
trim  has  been  made  outside  of  that  city.  Sporadic  in- 
stances of  such  boycotts,  however,  occur  from  time  to  time 
throughout  the  country.^** 

From  an  examination  of  the  carpenters'  boycott  it  might 
be  inferred  that  the  stronger  of  any  two  trades  placed  in  a 
juxtaposition  similar  to  that  of  the  carpenters  and  the  mill 
workers  would  invariably  aid  the  weaker  by  refusing  to 
use  materials  manufactured  under  non-union  conditions. 
But  this  is  not  always  the  case.  The  Bricklayers  and 
Masons'  International  Union,  Hke  the  United  Brotherhood 
of  Carpenters  and  Joiners,  is  composed  of  skilled  laborers, 
and  its  members  are  perhaps  even  more  strongly  organized 
than  are  the  carpenters;  the  brick,  tile  and  terra  cotta 
workers,  like  the  mill  workers,  are  unskilled  laborers  in  a 
state  of  disorganization.  The  product  of  the  brickmakers 
is  the  bricklayers'  material.  In  short,  the  positions  of  brick- 
layer and  brickmaker  and  of  carpenter  and  trim  worker  are 
exactly  analogous.  Yet  the  reactions  in  the  two  cases  are 
totally  different.  The  carpenters  boycott  non-union  trim, 
not  at  the  request,  but  in  the  face  of  the  sheer  indifference 
of  the  mill  workers  f^  the  bricklayers,  on  the  contrary,  will 
continue  to  use  brick  regardless  of  its  condition  of  manu- 
facture and  in  spite  of  requests  for  boycotts  by  both  the 
brickmakers  and  the  American  Federation  of  Labor.^^ 

The  explanation  of  this  difference  in  attitude  resolves 
itself  into  a  question  of  union  policy.  The  Bricklayers  and 
Masons'  International  Union  has  in  its  relation  with  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  and  with  many  building 
trades  councils  exhibited  an  attitude  of  extreme  reserve 

80  The  Carpenter,   September,  1895,  p.  11. 

81  Ibid.,  March,  1910,  p.  10. 

82  Annual  Report  of  the  President,  December,  191 1,  p.  131. 


BOYCOTT  ON    MATERIALS  53 

and  independence;  the  policy  of  the  United  Brotherhood 
of  Carpenters  and  Joiners  has  been  just  the  opposite.  It  is 
natural,  therefore,  that  these  two  opposing  points  of  views 
should  reveal  themselves  in  the  action  of  the  unions  with 
respect  to  the  materials  upon  which  they  work,  although 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  gap  in  technic  is  much 
greater  between  bricklaying  and  brickmaking  than  between 
carpentering  on  a  building  and  in  a  mill.  The  policies  of 
the  Bricklayers  and  of  the  Carpenters  represent,  however, 
extremes  between  which  there  exists  a  gradation  of  policies. 
Such  backward  boycotts  as  the  Carpenters'  boycott  of 
trim  or  the  boycott  by  the  Stone  Cutters  and  Granite  Cut- 
ters of  stone  which  is  quarried  by  non-union  quarry  work- 
ers,^^  or  which  is  cut  in  the  rough,  at  the  quarry  towns,  by 
non-union  stone  cutters  and  granite  cutters,'*  are  usually 
the  result  of  voluntary  action  by  the  boycotting  union,  with 
the  end  in  view  of  aiding  the  lower-process  workers.  Of 
the  same  character  are  the  boycotts  by  the  Brewery  Work- 
men of  unfair  cooperage;'*  the  boycotts  by  the  Marble 
Workers  of  marble  that  has  been  polished  by  non-union 
marble  polishers;'®  or  even  the  boycotts  by  the  Plumbers, 
Gas  Fitters  and  Steam  Fitters  of  the  products  of  firms  un- 
fair to  the  Metal  Polishers.'^  In  all  these  cases  the  boy- 
cott is  imposed  with  reasonable  frequency;  and  there  can 
be  said  to  be  such  close  connection  between  the  trades  that 
the  power  to  boycott  will  usually  be  exercised  by  the  higher- 
process  workers  whenever  their  neighbors  find  their  or- 
ganization threatened.  With  these  unions,  then,  with  the 
probable  exception  of  the  Plumbers  and  the  Metal  Polishers, 
the  boycott  on  unfair  materials  constitutes  a  recognized 
method  of  organization  that  is  often  employed;  by  none, 

33  Monthly  Circular  of  the  Journeymen  Stone  Cutters*  Associa- 
tion of  North  America,  August,  1892,  p.  4;  Granite  Cutters'  Journal, 
December,  1901,  p.  4. 

3*  Granite  Cutters'  Journal,  December,  1901,  p.  10. 

35  Coopers*  International  Journal,  March,  1903,  p.  no. 

36  Proceedings,  1911.  Reported  in  the  Marble  Worker,  July,  1911, 
p.  171. 

37  Plumbers,  Gas  and  Steam  Fitters'  Journal,  August,  1900,  p.  7. 


54  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

however,  on  so  extensive  a  scale  as  that  employed  by  the 
Carpenters.  It  is  necessary  to  note,  furthermore,  that  in 
the  unions  comprising  this  group  either  the  lower  and  higher 
process  workers  are  members  of  afhliated  trades  that  were 
generically  identical,  like  the  stone  cutters  working  in  large 
cities  and  those  working  in  quarry  towns,  or  these  unions 
work  in  close  contact  with  one  another,  like  the  Brewery 
Workmen  and  the  Coopers. 

On  the  other  hand,  unions  that  are  not  related  either  by 
identity  in  origin  or  by  proximity  in  labor  do  not  make  such 
frequent  and  effective  use  of  the  backward  boycott.  In- 
deed, even  when  a  request  is  made  by  the  union  that  manu- 
factures a  product  that  an  affihated  union  should  refuse  co 
handle  that  product,  the  request  is  often  disregarded.  In 
1911  the  president  of  the  Metal  Polishers'  Union  said  that 
the  local  unions  "  will  have  to  take  a  stand  against  the  em- 
ployment of  members  of  the  American  Federation  of  Mu- 
sicians until  such  time  as  they  decide  to  use  instruments" 
bearing  the  label  of  the  metal  polishers.  The  inference  is 
that  they  should  boycott  instruments  handled  by  non-union 
metal  polishers.^*  Of  equal  futility  was  the  request  made 
by  the  International  Coopers'  Union  of  the  Painters  and 
Decorators  and  of  the  Typographical  Union  that  they  should 
boycott  respectively  the  varnish  and  linseed  oil  and  the 
printers'  ink  that  were  carried  in  barrels  manufactured  by 
non-union  coopers  f*  of  the  same  character,  too,  and  prob- 
ably yielding  the  same  results,  was  the  appeal  by  the  Tex- 
tile Workers'  Union  of  Danville,  Virginia,  that  the  gar- 
ment workers  in  overall  and  shirt  factories  should  observe 
the  boycott  upon  "  overall  goods,  cheviot  and  sheeting,"  the 
products  of  an  unfair  Southern  cotton  mill.***  Even  where 
the  relations  between  two  unions  is  so  distant  as  that  be- 
tween the  Musicians  and  the  Printers  there  are  evidences  of 
sympathetic  action,  for  in  1908  the  Newark  local  union  of 

s8  The  Journal  [Metal  Polishers,  Buffers,  Platers,  Brass  Molders, 
Brass  and  Silver  Workers],  November,  191 1,  p.  17. 

8*  Proceedings  of  the  Nineteenth  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1899,  p.  99. 

*o  The  Garment  Worker,  August,  1901,  p.  17. 


BOYCOTT  ON   MATERIALS  55 

the  American  Federation  of  Musicians  adopted  a  resolu- 
tion binding  its  members  to  the  purchase  of  only  such  sheet 
music  as  bears  the  label  of  the  AlHed  Printing  Trades 
Council,  thus  indirectly  boycotting  music  that  does  not  bear 
such  a  label.*^  In  general,  however,  the  backward  boycott 
flourishes  only  between  unions  whose  work  is  more  or  less 
intimately  associated,  and  as  this  association  becomes  closer 
the  boycott  becomes  merged  into  forms  of  the  closed  shop.*^ 
Whenever  the  backward  boycott  is  employed,  it  is  used 
as  a  weapon  by  a  stronger  union  to  protect  or  to  strengthen 
a  weaker.  But  it  must  be  noted  that  stronger  and  weaker 
are  relative  terms,  and  that  frequently  unions  that  are  them- 
selves the  beneficiaries  of  the  backward  boycott  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  employ  the  same  weapon  in  the  organization  of  still 
weaker  trades.  The  Coopers,  for  example,  frequently  in- 
voke the  aid  of  the  Brewery  Workmen  by  requesting  them 
to  boycott  non-union  cooperage;  in  1909,  however,  the 
Coopers  International  Union  notified  the  Machine  Coopers 
Employers'  Association  that  they  would  not  be  permitted 
to  use  staves  made  and  bent  by  non-union  labor  in  the 
woods."*^  The  Brick,  Tile  and  Terra  Cotta  Workers,  al- 
though they  themselves  periodically  endeavor  to  have  the 
Bricklayers  boycott  the  products  of  non-union  brick-yards, 
have  occasionally,  in  an  effort  to  sustain  the  organization  of 
brick-yard  laborers,  boycotted  clay  mined  by  non-union 
laborers.**  Long  drawn  out  strikes  and  lockouts  also  force 
unions  that  are  otherwise  strong  to  accept  aid  during  the 
continuance  of  hostilities.  The  Iron  Molders,  for  instance, 
who  will  refuse  to  handle  cores  made  by  non-union  core- 
makers*''  and  patterns  made  by  non-union  pattern  makers,*® 
were,  when  on  strike,  helped  by  the  machinists,  who  refused 
to  work  on  scab  castings.*^ 

*i  The  International  Bookbinder,  October,  1908,  p.  344. 
*2  Stockton,  chapter  v,  also  p.  92. 

*3  Coopers'  International  Journal,  January,  1909,  p.  34. 
**  Brick,   Tile   and   Terra   Cotta   Workers'   Journal,    September, 
1907,  p.  15. 
*5  Labor  Leader,  Baltimore,  July  6,  1912,  p.  i. 
*6  American  Federationist,  August,   1898,  p.  123. 
*''  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  February  6,  1896,  p.  2. 


56  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

(2)  The  forward  boycott  is  defined  as  the  refusal  by 
union  laborers  in  the  lower  processes  of  manufacture  to 
make  material  that  will  probably  or  certainly  be  used  in  the 
next  higher  process  by  non-unionists.  This  form  of  the 
boycott  and  the  backward  boycott  are  reciprocal.  Usually 
a  union  which  at  one  time  imposes  the  backward  boycott  is 
at  another  time  the  beneficiary  of  the  forward  boycott. 
Thus  the  granite  cutters,  whose  use  of  the  backward  boycott 
has  already  been  described,  were  aided  by  lower  process 
workers  when  in  1907  the  granite  cutters  in  the  New  Eng- 
land quarry  towns  of  Barre,  Quincy,  and  Westerly  were 
requested  to  refuse  to  cut  granite  that  was  destined  for  un- 
fair granite-cutting  firms  in  the  West.*®  When  the  Brew- 
ery Workmen  are  on  a  strike,  the  Coopers  will  at  times 
refuse  to  work  on  cooperage  that  will  be  sent  to  the  non- 
union breweries.*®  In  1901,  in  discussing  the  complaint  of 
the  Carpenters'  Union  that  the  wood  workers  can  be  of  no 
assistance  to  them,  the  Wood  Workers  pointed  out  that 
when,  in  the  erection  of  the  Marshall  Field  Building  in  Chi- 
cago, a  contractor  had  imported  scabs  to  work  on  that  build- 
ing, "  the  wood-workers  in  the  factory  having  the  contract 
for  the  mill  trim  notified  those  in  interest  that  if  any  mill 
trim  was  delivered  to  the  building  a  strike  would  be  called 
in  the  factory.  The  factory  did  attempt  to  deliver  the  ma- 
terial and  the  wood-workers  struck."*** 

A  union  will  at  times  deliberately  organize  laborers  in  a 
lower  layer  of  industry  in  order  to  take  advantage  of  the 
refusal  of  that  union  to  work  on  material  that  is  intended 
to  supply  unfair  labor.  The  Marble  Workers  have  been 
actuated  by  this  motive  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  any  other 
in  their  organization  of  the  factory  workers  in  the  marble 

*8  Granite  Cutters*  Journal,  September,  1907,  p.  5.  In  the  same 
year  a  communication  from  Waco,  Texas,  discussing  the  means  for 
unionizing  several  non-union  granite-cutting  firms  at  that  place, 
states  that  "  as  long  as  they  can  get  granite  it  will  be  hard  to  do 
anything  with  them,  so  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  put  a  stop  to 
their  getting  granite,  either  finished  or  rough  stock"  (ibid.,  June, 
1907,  p.  10). 

*^  Coopers*  International  Journal,  August,  1912,  p.  455. 

6"  The  International  Wood  Worker,  June,  1901,  p.  69. 


BOYCOTT  ON    MATERIALS  57 

industry.  Frequent  references  are  found  throughout  the 
journals  of  the  International  Association  of  Marble  Workers 
in  which  the  officers  encourage  the  organization  of  the  shop- 
men on  the  ground  that  "  the  shopmen  can  help  the  setter, 
by  refusing  to  supply  the  finished  material  to  employers 
who  employ  others  than  members  of  the  International  As- 
sociation of  Marble  Workers. "^^  This  fact  was  again  em- 
phasized in  the  annual  report  of  the  secretary,  who  states 
that  because  the  masons  are  setting  marble  it  is  necessary 
for  the  International  Association  of  Marble  Workers  to 
control  the  shop  work,  in  which  case  the  shop  workers 
would  refuse  to  cut  stone  to  be  set  by  masons.  "  Control 
the  trade  from  the  mill  to  the  building  and  no  firm  will  at- 
tempt to  put  others  than  our  members  at  work  in  the  build- 
ij^g"52  If.  would  not  be  surprising  if  the  carpenters,  in 
their  efforts  to  organize  the  mills  of  the  country,  had  in 
view  the  creation  in  the  unionized  mills  of  a  reserve  force 
that  could  in  the  remote  future  be  employed  as  the  marble 
setters  employ  their  organized  factory  workers."^ 

Where,  on  the  other  hand,  two  groups  of  workers  are 
members  of  trades  not  closely  allied,  it  sometimes  follows 
as  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  selfish  influences  under- 
lying the  motives  of  individuals  that  one  group  will  not 
impose  either  of  the  two  forms  of  boycott  unless  there  is 
an  immediate  or  future  prospect  that  the  union  which  it 
now  aids  will  later  be  in  a  position  to  extend  it  similar  aid. 
This  fact  is  well  illustrated  in  the  dispute  in  1903  between 
the  Retail  Clerks*  International  Protective  Association  and 
the  Boot  and  Shoe  Workers'  Union.  A  retail  shoe  dealer 
in  Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  was  the  sole  agent  in  that  town 

«5i  The  Marble  Worker,  January,  1908,  p.  4. 

52  Ibid.,  August,  1910,  p.  193. 

58  A  forward  boycott  imposed  by  the  mill-workers  could  not  be 
effective  unless  practically  all  mills  in  the  tFnited  States  were 
organized.  If,  in  their  present  state  of  organization,  the  mill- 
workers  refused  to  manufacture  trim  that  was  destined  for  an  un- 
fair building  contractor,  the  boycott  would  be  ineffective  because  of 
the  contractor's  ability  to  buy  from  any  one  of  the  numerous  non- 
union mills  that  have  so  far  defied  the  attempts  of  the  carpenters* 
union  to  organize  them. 


58  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

for  the  union  label  "  Walk-Over  "  shoe ;  because  of  his  re- 
fusal to  employ  union  clerks,  he  was  declared  unfair  by  the 
retail  clerks'  organization,  which  began  its  campaign  against 
him  by  requesting  the  manufacturer  of  Walk-Over  shoes  to 
remove  his  local  agency  from  this  unfair  dealer.  Failing 
in  this,  the  Clerks  turned  to  the  Boot  and  Shoe  Workers, 
and  requested  them  to  refuse  to  help  the  manufacture  of 
shoes  that  would  be  sold  to  the  Massachusetts  local  agent 
In  the  subsequent  correspondence  between  the  officers  of 
the  Retail  Clerks*  International  Protective  Association  and 
President  Tobin  of  the  Boot  and  Shoe  Workers'  Union,  the 
latter,  while  admitting  the  justice  of  the  request  that  the 
Boot  and  Shoe  Workers  should  use  their  influence  with 
manufacturers  in  having  them  sell  their  products  to  fair 
dealers,  took  the  stand  that  his  union  could  not  oblige  the 
manufacturer  to  remove  his  product  from  a  certain  store. 
Moreover,  he  raised  the  point,  which  is  of  immediate  con- 
cern here,  that  unless  the  clerks  took  the  position  that  none 
of  their  members  should  sell  anything  but  union  shoes,  they 
were  not  justified  in  demanding  that  the  Boot  and  Shoe 
Workers  should  work  only  on  shoes  destined  for  dealers 
fair  to  the  clerks.^*  This  argument,  which  is  so  clearly 
stated  by  President  Tobin,  is  probably  that  which,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  many  union  officials  entertain 
before  imposing  either  a  forward  or  a  backward  boycott 
The  question  is  not  only  whom  will  the  union  benefit  by 
this  boycott,  but  what  future  advantages  will  come  to  the 
union  itself. 

(3)  The  lateral  boycott  is  a  boycott  on  materials,  not  for 
the  purpose  of  organizing  the  workers  in  the  lower  or 
higher  processes  of  manufacture,  but  to  force  the  employ- 
ment of  members  of  the  same  union  or  of  coordinate  unions, 
that  is,  of  workers  in  the  same  stratum  of  industry.  The 
bricklayers  boycott  brick,  not  because  it  is  made  by  unor- 

"  Proceedings  of  the  Eleventh  Convention  of  the  Retail  Clerks' 
International  Protective  Association  in  Retail  Clerks'  International 
Advocate,  July,  1903,  p.  64. 


BOYCOTT   ON    MATERIALS  59 

ganized  brickmakers,  but  in  order  to  force  the  organization 
of  the  bricklayers  employed  at  the  brick-yards  in  building 
kilns.*^**  This  form  of  boycott  occurs  generally  as  the  sym- 
pathetic strike.  Where,  for  example,  manufacturers  oper- 
ating in  one  territorial  division  of  an  industry  have  trouble 
with  their  employees  and  attempt  to  have  the  same  work 
done  elsewhere  by  union  labor,  the  workmen  in  the  places 
to  which  the  materials  have  been  removed,  in  sympathy 
with  the  strikers,  refuse  to  handle  the  material.^®  Under 
this  head  can  be  placed  the  early  strike  of  the  New  York 
Cordwainers  in  which  "the  proprietor  originally  involved 
transferred  his  work  to  other  shops  thus  precipitating  a 
strike  against  all  proprietors."  Similarly,  "  the  caulkers  of 
Boston  in  1866  refused  to  do  certain  work  for  their  em- 
ployers on  the  ground  that  it  was  intended  to  help  certain 
other  employers  in  New  York  whose  men  were  on  a  strike 
and  were  discharged."^^ 

The  lateral  boycott  first  became  a  frequent  and  an  effec- 
tive weapon  under  the  Knights  of  Labor.  In  disputes  with 
railroads  the  lateral  boycott  appeared  as  a  refusal  by  the 
railroad  laborers  on  a  fair  or  union  road  to  handle  the  roll- 
ing-stock of  railroads  that  were  unfair  to  their  employees. 
For  example,  the  persistent  opposition  of  the  Wabash  Rail- 
road Company  to  the  Knights  of  Labor  caused  the  general 
executive  board  of  the  Knights  to  issue  in  1885  an  order  to 
all  members  "  employed  on  the  Union  Pacific  and  its  branches 
and  on  Gould's  Southwestern  system  that  they  must  refuse 
to  handle  or  repair  Wabash  rolling  stock."''^  This  is  a  typ- 
ical instance.  In  1893  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  En- 
gineers and  the  Firemen's  Brotherhood  ordered  employees 
on  other  roads  to  boycott  the  freight  and  the  cars  of  the 
Toledo,  Ann  Arbor,   and   North   Michigan  Railroad,   on 

5SThe  Bricklayer  and  Mason,  April,  1909,  p.  88. 

''^"The  usual  British  strike  boycott  aims  at  preventing  the  em- 
ployer .  .  .  from  getting  his  work  done  at  other  places  "  (Burnett, 
p.  172). 

57  Hall,  p.  35. 

58  Proceedings,  1885,  p.  90. 


60  THE   BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

which  a  strike  was  then  in  progress.*^*  These  boycotts  ob- 
viously do  not  arise  from  a  deliberate  transfer  of  goods 
from  a  territory  in  which  there  is  a  strike  to  one  in  which 
peace  reigns.  But  the  presence  in  a  certain  region  of  prop- 
erty which  belongs  to  foreign  owners  and  which  must  be 
handled  by  men  employed  by  others  than  the  proprietors 
presents  a  condition  that  is  as  favorable  to  the  imposition 
of  the  lateral  boycott  as  does  the  direct  transfer  of  goods. 
Because,  however,  of  the  conservatism  and  strength  of  the 
railway  unions,  and  because  the  vast  public  loss  incurred 
through  strikes  on  railroads  would  most  likely  bring  legal 
interference  with  such  sympathetic  strikes,  this  form  of 
boycott  no  longer  flourishes. 

An  interesting  variation  of  it  is  found  in  the  sympathetic 
strike  as  practised  by  the  United  Mine  Workers.  Here, 
too,  as  above,  the  sympathetic  strike  does  not  consist  in  re- 
fusing to  work  upon  goods  that  have  been  sent  from  other 
districts ;  the  entry,  however,  upon  a  sympathetic  strike  has 
the  effect  of  forcing  back  into  employment  members  of  the 
same  union.  "  Because  the  capacity  of  the  coal  mines  is  so 
much  greater  than  the  possible  consumption  of  coal,  it  hap- 
pens that  when  one  district  is  compelled  to  strike  .  .  .  the 
markets  can  be  supplied  by  mines  in  other  districts  and  this 
has  often  been  done  without  loss  or  profit  to  the  employers 
that  engage  in  the  contest.  The  operators  in  the  districts 
where  work  has  not  been  suspended  would  enter  into  com- 
bination with  those  in  the  striking  district  by  which  they 
would  supply  the  trade  and  contracts  of  the  operators  on 
strike,  giving  them  a  share  of  the  profits  which  accrued  to 
those  supplying  the  trade.""**  Obviously,  a  refusal  by  the 
miners  who  are  to  mine  this  surplus  coal  to  perform  their 
duties  is  as  effective  a  means  of  forcing  the  striking  miners 
back  into  employment  as  is  the  boycott  by  the  Knights  of 

•^^L.  B.  Boudin,  "  Der  Kampf  der  Arbeiterklasse  gegen  die  rich- 
terliche  Gewalt,"  in  Archiv  f.  d.  Geschichte  des  Sozialismus  u.  d. 
Arbeiterbewegung,  i.  Heft,  1913,  p.  50.  See  also  Journal  of  the 
Knights  of  Labor,  March  30,  1893,  p.  i. 

«o  Testimony  of  John  Mitchell  in  Report  of  U.  S.  Industrial 
Commission,  vol.  xii,  p.  37. 


BOYCOTT  ON   MATERIALS  6l 

Labor  on  unfair  rolling-stock  in  obtaining  concessions  for 
striking  railroad  employees. 

In  industries  in  which  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  ship  the 
parts  of  goods  or  unfinished  products  from  place  to  place, 
or  from  factory  to  factory,  the  lateral  boycott  or  sympa- 
thetic strike  occurs  with  more  frequency.  It  is  thus  often 
employed  by  such  unions  as  the  Hatters  and  the  Garment 
Workers.  In  the  strike  of  the  Ladies'  Shirtwaist  Workers 
in  New  York  in  191  o  many  sympathetic  strikes  were  called 
to  prevent  the  unfinished  goods  from  being  sent  to  be  fin- 
ished in  other  establishments  or  in  other  cities.'^  The 
clothing  strike  in  Baltimore  in  191 3  was  ostensibly  entered 
into  by  the  Garment  Workers  to  prevent  the  manufacture 
by  a  local  establishment  of  goods  that  could  not,  because 
of  the  strike  in  that  city,  be  manufactured  in  New  York. 
On  the  same  theory,  the  Granite  Cutters'  Union  has  in  its 
national  constitution  a  section  devoted  to  "work  sent  else- 
where during  a  strike,"  which  states  that  "  when  the  mem- 
bers of  a  branch  are  on  a  strike  or  are  locked-out,  and  where 
the  employers  send  their  work  to  another  locality  to  be  cut, 
no  other  branch  should  allow  its  members  to  cut  such  work 
for  any  employer  to  help  out  the  employer  where  the  strike 
or  lockout  is  going  on."®^ 

These  forms  of  boycott,  which  have  been  considered  in 
the  foregoing  discussion  from  the  standpoint  of  their  ef- 
fect on  the  laborer,  can  now  be  briefly  regarded  from  the 
standpoint  of  their  effect  on  the  employer.  The  backward 
boycott  affects  one  group  of  employers  by  preventing  them 
from  buying  certain  materials  that  are  distasteful  to  the 
union,  and  it  affects  another  group  of  employers  by  de- 
creasing the  number  of  their  customers.  The  forward  boy- 
cott forces  a  manufacturer  to  restrict  his  sales  by  render- 
ing it  impossible  for  him  to  sell  to  manufacturers  who  have 
incurred  the  hostility  of  his  laboring  force,  and  it  affects 
the  latter  by  restricting  their  buying  market.     The  lateral 

*^  Bulletin,  New  York  Department  of  Labor,  no.  45,  September, 
1910,  p.  371. 
•2  Constitution,  1905,  sec.  112,  p.  39. 


62  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

boycott  is  designed  to  prevent  a  manufacturer  from  filling 
his  orders  by  intimidating  those  manufacturers  who  seek  to 
help  him  in  the  production  of  his  goods.  Finally,  there  is 
the  fourth  form  of  the  boycott  by  which  employers  may  be- 
come completely  cut  off  from  one  another  and  from  indus- 
try in  general.  When  this  boycott  is  in  force,  they  some- 
times cannot  have  brought  to  them  the  materials  they  buy 
and  at  other  times  cannot  have  carried  from  them  the  prod- 
ucts they  sell.  This  state  of  affairs  arises  when  manufac- 
turers are  boycotted  as  to  transportation  facilities. 

This  boycott  has  been  applied  almost  exclusively  by  the 
local  unions  of  the  International  Brotherhood  of  Teamsters. 
In  the  period  between  1900  and  1907  it  can  be  said  that 
there  was  hardly  an  industrial  dispute  of  any  importance 
in  places  where  the  teamsters  were  at  all  organized  with 
which  they  did  not  have  some  connection.  Their  part  in 
the  dispute  consisted  in  refusing  to  haul  goods,  either  be- 
cause the  goods  themselves  were  unfair  or  because  the 
points  of  origin  or  of  destination  of  the  goods  were  under 
the  union  ban.  At  one  time  or  another  the  teamsters  have 
extended  their  support  to  the  Bakers,®^  the  Freight  Hand- 
lers,®* the  Brickmakers,®'^  the  Longshoremen,®^  the  Miners,®^ 
the  Laundry  Workers,*®  the  Meat  Cutters  and  Butchers,®® 
the  Wood  Workers,^®  the  Coopers,^^  the  Garment  Workers, 
and  many  other  trades.  Now  they  will  refuse  to  haul 
goods  that  are  handled  by  non-union  freight-handlers  and 
to  haul  freight  to  and  from  the  piers  of  the  New  York,  New 
Haven  and  Hartford  Railroad  because  the  longshoremen 

*s  Team  Drivers'  Journal,  April,  1901,  p.  10. 

«*Ibid.,  May,  1903,  p.  6. 

^^  Brick,  Tile  and  Terra  Cotta  Workers'  Journal,  October,  1906, 
p.  12. 

^6  Magazine  of  International  Brotherhood  of  Teamsters,  Sep- 
tember, 1904,  p.  13. 

«7  Proceedings  of  the  Third  Annual  Convention  of  the  Inter- 
national Brotherhood  of  Teamsters,  1905,  p.  98. 

«8The  Teamsters,  November,  1905,  p.  24. 

6»  Magazine  of  the  International  Brotherhood  of  Teamsters, 
August,  1904,  p.  6. 

^oTeam  Drivers'  Journal,  June,  1902,  p.  13. 

^1  Coopers'  International  Journal,  June,  1903,  p.  260. 


BOYCOTT  ON    MATERIALS  63 

there  are  on  a  strike ;  and  again  they  will  not  carry  bread 
baked  by  other  than  union  bakers,  or  will  refuse  to  haul 
unlaundered  collars  from  the  Chicago  factory  of  the  Cluett- 
Peabody  Company,  where  the  collar  starchers  are  in  a  state 
of  lockout.  In  the  great  lockout  of  the  Garment  Workers 
in  Chicago  in  1905  the  teamsters,  by  first  refusing  to  haul 
for  non-union  clothing  firms,  soon  entered  into  a  struggle 
that  eventually  involved  their  whole  organization;  indeed, 
so  great  was  their  activity  that  it  was  difficult  to  determine 
after  some  time  had  elapsed  whether  the  trouble  had  orig- 
inated with  the  Garment  Workers  or  with  the  Teamsters.''* 
Toward  the  Chicago  packing  house  employees,  in  their  fre- 
quent strikes,  the  teamsters  have  exhibited  the  same  sym- 
pathy by  refusing  to  haul  to  or  from  the  stock-yards. 

This  facility  in  becoming  involved  in  foreign  disputes, 
which  inheres  in  the  transportation  industry,  has  not  es- 
caped the  critical  comment  of  the  officers  of  the  teamsters' 
union.  In  an  editorial  in  the  journal  of  the  union  in  1903 
the  writer  asserts  that  "  the  strongest  argument  some  unions 
use  nowadays  to  convince  themselves  that  they  ought  to  go 
out  on  a  strike  is  that  they  will  have  the  support  of  the 
Teamsters*  Union."^^  In  his  report  in  1905  the  third  vice- 
president  of  the  Teamsters'  Union  makes  the  following 
philosophic  comment  upon  the  tendency  of  the  Teamsters 
to  be  drawn  into  every  sort  of  industrial  dispute:  "The 
Brotherhood  of  Teamsters  is  peculiarly  situated.  We  are 
like  the  keystone  of  the  arch.  Not  only  do  other  unions 
lean  on  us,  but  employers  also.  We  are  'go-betweens'  in 
almost  every  branch  of  industry ;  and  on  that  account,  when- 
ever industrial  troubles  arise,  we  are  pulled  and  hauled  on 
every  side.  It  is  *  teamsters,  come  here'  and  'teamsters, 
go  there.'  A  great  deal  depends  upon  our  action  in  indus- 
trial troubles."^* 


T*  Proceedings  of  the  Third  Annual  Convention  of  the  Inter- 
national Brotherhood  of  Teamsters,  1905,  p.  18.  See  also  Weekly- 
Bulletin   [Garment  Workers],  January  6,  1905,  p.  i. 

^•Teamsters'  National  Journal,  March,  1903,  p.  9. 

"Proceedings,  1905,  p.  43. 


64  THE   BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

In  a  system  of  industry  in  which  union  methods  of  pres- 
sure were  not  interfered  with  by  the  courts  and  where  the 
technic  of  industry  and  the  strength  of  the  labor  organiza- 
tions remained  comparatively  unchanged,  it  is  conceivable 
that  each  of  these  four  forms  of  boycott,  once  established 
and  tried,  would  be  indiscriminately  applied  to  industrial 
disputes.  The  courts  interfere,  however;  organization 
changes,  becoming  stronger  here  and  weaker  there ;  and  the 
policies  of  labor  leaders  undergo  complete  transformation. 
It  happens,  therefore,  that  a  popular  form  of  pressure  in 
one  period  of  industry  becomes  obsolete  in  the  succeeding 
period.  Thus  the  frequent  declaration  by  the  courts  of 
the  illegality  of  the  sympathetic  strike  and  the  supposed 
popular  prejudice  against  that  form  of  strike  have  inter- 
fered with  its  application.''®  The  use  of  the  transportation 
boycott  has  been  influenced  not  so  much  by  legal  obstacles 
and  popular  opposition  as  by  a  change  in  union  policy. 

Aroused  by  the  trouble  and  expense  in  which  they  became 
involved  through  their  sympathetic  participation  in  the  af- 
fairs of  other  unions,  the  International  Brotherhood  of 
Teamsters  declared  in  1906  against  such  action,  and  inserted 
in  the  constitution  a  section  forbidding  a  strike  "in  sym- 
pathy with  any  organization  not  affihated  with  the  Brother- 

""^  Thus,  Adams  and  Summer  contend  that  the  sympathetic  strike 
is  one  of  the  "  three  species  of  strikes  upon  which  the  public  seems 
to  have  set  the  seal  of  its  disapprobation"  (p.  185).  In  spite  of  its 
unpopularity,  however,  Dr.  Ira  Cross,  after  an  examination  of  the 
report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  on  strike  statistics,  noticed  "  a  slow 
but  steady  growth  in  the  number  of  sympathetic  strikes  from  1896 
to  1905,"  a  growth  which  he  attributed  to  the  "increasing  number 
of  strikes  against  performing  work  for  other  establishments  in 
which  a  strike  or  lockout  was  pending  or  against  furnishing  ma- 
terial to  such  establishments"  ("Strike  Statistics,"  in  Publications 
of  the  American  Statistical  Association,  vol.  xi,  p.  175).  Huebner, 
too,  while  he  finds  the  strike  against  the  use  of  non-union  material 
one  of  growing  importance,  believes  the  sympathetic  strike  to  be 
falling  in  importance  (p.  114).  He,  however,  overlooks  the  gradual 
rise  in  his  curve  beginning  with  1896.  This  increase,  in  the  face 
of  legal  obstacles,  is  probably  due  to  changes  in  organization  in 
American  trade  unions.  It  is,  however,  too  small  as  yet  to  be  of 
any  great  significance.  The  inclusion,  too,  in  a  study  of  the 
statistics  of  sympathetic  strikes  of  all  forms  of  such  strikes  makes 
the  conclusions  of  little  value  for  our  purposes  here. 


BOYCOTT   ON    MATERIALS  65 

hood."^®  It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  the  adoption  of 
such  a  policy  means  the  cessation  of  the  transportation  boy- 
cott. Legislative  action  by  voluntary  associations  forbid- 
ding practices  that  are  advantageous  to  large  numbers  is 
rarely  so  effective  as  is  the  interference  of  the  legal  machin- 
ery of  a  state.  And,  as  it  happens,  in  this  particular  case 
certain  changes  in  organization  are  being  experienced  that 
may  nullify  the  effect  of  the  Teamsters'  constitutional  pro- 
vision. For  "  in  many  cases  the  teamsters  are  engaged  ex- 
clusively in  handling  the  material  used  by  a  certain  industry, 
or  the  finished  product  of  that  industry,  as  the  bakery 
wagon  drivers,  the  laundry  wagon  drivers,  the  beer  wagon 
drivers;  the  close  connection  existing  between  these  men 
and  the  other  workmen  with  whom  they  are  associated  has 
consequently  led  to  the  extensive  practice  of  taking  them 
into  "  their  organization.*^^  From  which  it  follows  that,  even 
though  the  policy  of  the  Teamsters'  Brotherhood  may  give 
the  transportation  boycott  a  serious  setback  for  a  while, 
these  tendencies  of  organization  will  nevertheless  cause  it  to 
revive  in  the  end  under  different  auspices.  In  other  words, 
the  refusal  to  supply  certain  employers  with  transportation 
facilities  instead  of  emanating,  as  at  present,  from  the 
Teamsters'  Union,  would  come  from  such  organizations  as 
the  Bakery  and  Confectionery  Workers  or  the  Brewery 
Workmen,  which  include  in  their  membership  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  teamsters  employed  in  those  industries. 

The  question  now  naturally  arises  whether  the  future  of 
trade  unionism  in  this  country  will  be  marked  by  a  more 
general  or  a  more  restricted  use  of  the  various  forms  of 
boycotts  on  materials.  To  be  sure,  legal  obstacles  and  the 
refusal  of  certain  unions  to  became  involved  in  the  disputes 
of  other  labor  organizations  have  the  effect  of  seriously  hin- 
dering any  development  in  the  boycott  on  materials.     On 

^«  Constitution,  1906,  sec.  61. 

■^7  Report  of  President,  in  Proceedings,  in  Team  Drivers*  Journal, 
August,  1903,  p.  30. 

5 


66  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

the  Other  hand,  two  significant  tendencies  in  the  extension 
and  in  the  federation  or  combination  of  existing  trade  unions 
should  result  in  the  employment  of  the  boycott  on  materials 
on  a  scale  more  extensive  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of 
American  labor  organizations. 

The  first  tendency  is  embodied  in  the  generally  observed 
adoption  by  American  trade  unions  of  more  inclusive  meth- 
ods of  organization.  Although  a  variety  of  causes  may 
have  contributed  to  this  tendency,  there  is  little  doubt  that 
the  power  given  to  the  union  over  the  movement  of  ma- 
terials has  been  a  cogent  argument  in  favor  of  its  prosecu- 
tion. Earlier  in  this  chapter,  in  a  somewhat  diflferent  con- 
nection, there  was  described  the  deliberate  inclusion  in  their 
union  by  the  Marble  Workers  of  the  factory  workers  in 
the  marble  industry,  an  inclusion  which  was  dictated  by  the 
desire  to  enlist  the  aid  of  the  factory  workers  in  directing 
the  distribution  of  materials.  Influenced  by  the  same  mo- 
tive, the  Brick,  Tile  and  Terra  Cotta  Workers,  in  spite  of 
the  opposition  of  the  United  Mine  Workers,  maintained 
that  clay  miners  were  under  the  jurisdiction  of  their  union. 
With  the  clay  miners  members  of  the  brickmakers*  union, 
its  officers  believed  that  the  Brick,  Tile  and  Terra  Cotta 
Workers  would  have  an  "opportunity  to  organize  those 
plants  that  had  been  fighting  them  for  some  time."^®  Dr. 
T.  W.  Glocker,  arguing  along  the  same  lines,  cites  the  juris- 
dictional dispute  between  the  Retail  Clerks'  Protective  As- 
sociation and  the  Butchers'  Union  in  which  the  latter  union 
claimed  jurisdiction  over  the  meat  cutters  because  "  in  case 
of  a  boycott  against  one  of  the  packing  houses,  the  meat- 
cutter  can  render  a  valuable  service  by  refusing  to  cut  the 
meat  slaughtered  by  such  a  firm."^® 

One  of  the  most  frequent  arguments  advanced  by  the  ad- 
vocates of  industrial  unionism  is  that  such  a  form  of  or- 

78  Brick,  Tile  and  Terra  Cotta  Workers'  Journal,  December,  1905, 
p.  20. 

7»  "  The  Unit  of  Government  in  the  Meat  Cutters'  and  Butchers' 
Union,"  in  Johns  Hopkins  University  Circular,  new  ser.,  1905,  no. 
6,  p.  23. 


BOYCOTT  ON    MATERIALS  67 

ganization  forces  the  use  of  fair  materials  in  all  depart- 
ments of  an  industry.  A  correspondent  of  the  journal  of 
the  Stove  Mounters'  Union,  many  of  whose  members  are 
staunch  advocates  of  a  modified  form  of  industrial  unionism, 
points  out  that  when  the  Metal  Polishers  were  on  a  strike 
that  lasted  for  four  months,  the  Stove  Mounters  continued 
to  handle  the  material  of  scab  metal  polishers,  and  that,  if 
the  Iron  Molders  were  to  strike,  the  mounters  would  mount 
plates  made  by  non-union  molders.  If,  however,  the  Iron 
Molders,  the  Metal  Polishers,  and  the  Stove  Mounters  were 
organized  into  a  single  union,  they  could  eliminate  the  use 
of  unfair  material  by  "completely  tying  up  a  shop"  when 
one  union  was  in  a  difficulty .^'' 

A  somewhat  different  aspect  of  the  question  is  presented 
when  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  is  considered  as 
the  organizing  agent.  It  has  been  the  custom  of  the  Fed- 
eration to  organize  under  its  direct  control  local  unions  of 
laborers,  usually  unskilled,  who,  either  because  they  are  too 
few  in  number  or  because  there  is  no  obvious  relation  be- 
tween their  trades,  have  not  been  organized  by  the  existing 
national  unions.*^  The  creation  of  each  new  union  of  this 
kind,  bringing  within  the  pale  of  organized  labor  those  who 
have  long  worked  outside  of  its  protection,  exposes  industry 
to  attack,  or  at  least  to  the  possibility  of  attack,  from  many 
new  sources.  For  example,  the  members  of  a  local  union 
affiliated  with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  who 
worked  for  the  Carborundum  Company,  manufacturers  o£ 
a  substitute  for  emery,  were  discharged  by  that  company  as 
a  penalty  for  organizing  into  a  labor  union.  The  request 
was  then  made  by  these  laborers  that  the  Metal  Polishers 

80  Stove  Mounters*  Journal,  April,  1904,  p.  119;  April,  1902,  p.  437, 
8^  "  Moreover,  the  number  of  national  associations  is  being  con- 
stantly swelled  through  the  efforts  of  paid  agents  maintained  by  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor.  These  agents  are  continually 
organizing  local  unions  among  the  non-union  workers  in  various 
industries  and  welding  them  together  into  international  trade 
unions"  (T.  W.  Glocker,  "The  Government  of  American  Trade 
Unions,"  in  Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies,  ser.  xxxi,  no.  2, 
p.  55.) 


68  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE  UNIONS 

should  boycott  the  product  of  the  firm,  a  mineral  used  in 
polishing  metals.®^  Before  the  advent  of  this  union,  the 
metal  polishers  could  use  emery  and  carborundum  polishers 
regardless  of  the  condition  of  their  manufacture ;  once  these 
laborers  were  organized,  however,  the  metal  polishers  were 
requested  to  begin  to  discriminate  in  the  choice  of  their  im- 
plements of  labor.  Likewise,  the  organization  of  such 
workers  as  the  Gold  Beaters  presents  to  the  Bookbinders, 
large  consumers  of  gold-leaf,  the  necessity  of  inquiring 
into  the  source  of  materials  upon  whose  conditions  of  manu- 
facture they  had  hitherto  looked  with  indifference.®'  Fur- 
thermore, even  though  these  boycotts  are  not  imposed  as 
soon  as  requested,  yet  the  presence  in  any  industry  of  an  or- 
ganized body  of  workmen  with  insistent  demands  cannot 
fail  to  have  its  effect.  And  the  effect  is  invariably  a  closer 
scrutiny  by  unions  of  the  character  of  materials,  culminat- 
ing in  boycotts  upon  those  materials  found  to  be  unfair. 

The  second  influence  that  contributes  to  foster  the  growth 
of  the  boycott  on  materials  is  the  notable  tendency,  devel- 
oped within  the  last  decade  or  two,  toward  the  formation 
of  trade  federations.  Trade  federations  first  influence  the 
growth  of  the  boycott  by  strengthening  their  constituent 
unions  and  by  substituting  concerted  for  individual  action. 
This  factor  accounts  for  the  predominance  of  the  backward 
boycott  in  the  building  industry.  If  the  brickmakers  wish 
to  boycott  builders  by  refusing  to  help  in  the  manufacture 
of  their  materials,  they  must  stand  alone,  and  they  are  not 
aided  by  any  of  the  other  trades  concerned  in  the  produc- 
tion of  building  materials.  The  existence  of  a  building 
trades  council,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  a  boycott  by  any 
one  building-trade  union  an  extremely  effective  weapon. 
Whenever  a  carpenter  boycotts  unfair  trim,  he  issues  his 
manifesto  blithely,  for  he  knows  that  he  has  behind  him  the 

82  The  Journal  [Metal  Polishers,  Buffers,  Platers,  Brass  Molders, 
and  Brass  Workers],  December,  1901,  p.  9. 

83  Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-fourth  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1904,  p.  109. 


BOYCOTT  ON    MATERIALS  69 

concerted  support  of  twenty  or  more  building-trades 
unions.®* 

The  great  advantage  of  such  a  confederation  of  trades 
has  been  frequently  noted  by  the  unions  concerned  in  the 
manufacture  of  building  materials.  Indeed,  a  number  of 
such  organizations  have  been  launched.  In  1897  there  was 
organized  in  Chicago  a  federation  composed  of  the  sash 
and  door  makers,  terra  cotta  workers,  brick-makers  and 
others,  to  be  known  as  the  Building  Material  Trades  Coun- 
cil. This  organization  was  sponsored  by  the  Chicago  Build- 
ing Trades  Council;  and  it  was  the  intention  at  the  time 
that  the  two  organizations  should  work  in  harmony,  "the 
material  men  refusing  to  work  on  material  for  a  building 
upon  which  non-union  men  were  engaged  in  constructing 
and  the  building  trades  refusing  to  handle  material  made  in 
non-union  establishments."®'  In  1899  the  Chicago  local 
union  of  the  Metal  Polishers*  Union  reported  that  it  had 
become  affiliated  with  the  Building  Material  Trades  Council 
of  that  city;  and  stated  further  that  the  affiliation  was  ad- 
vantageous because  the  Building  Trades  Council  kept  posted 
on  all  brass  work  that  was  used  in  the  construction  of  build- 
ings.®® Similar  sentiments  of  approval  from  the  Chande- 
lier Workers  of  that  city  attested  the  power  of  the  federa- 
tion by  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  "non-union  made 
chandeliers  would  find  a  poor  market  in  that  section  of  the 
country."®^  The  organization  was,  however,  an  ephemeral 
one,  and  at  the  present  time  there  does  not  exist  in  the 
United  States  a  single  building  material  trades'  council. 

A  federation  of  trades,  which  is  almost  an  exact  counter- 
part of  the  Building  Material  Trades  Council  in  purpose 
and  constitution,  is  represented  by  the  Metal  Trades  De- 

8*  The  Carpenter,  June,  1910,  pp.  2,  14.  An  estimate  of  Irving 
and  Casson,  a  large  non-union  trim  manufacturing  firm,  was  re- 
jected by  a  New  York  building  contractor  because  he  was  "un- 
willing to  take  the  risk  of  trouble  arising"  on  a  building  where 
members  of  the  Building  Trades*  Council  were  at  work. 

85  The  International  Wood  Worker,  April,  1897,  p.  263. 

8^  The  Journal  [Metal  Polishers,  Buffers,  Platers,  Brass  Molders, 
and  Brass  Workers],  November,  1899,  p.  355. 

87  Ibid.,  p.  327. 


70  THE   BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

partment  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  organized 
in  1908,  with  branches  in  about  fifty  important  cities. ^^ 
Although  some  of  the  members  of  this  federation  are  em- 
ployed in  the  manufacture  of  building  materials,  as  its  name 
indicates  it  is  restricted  to  unions  in  the  metal  trades,  and 
therefore  excludes  a  union  like  the  Brick,  Tile  and  Terra 
Cotta  Workers*  Alliance.  It  is,  nevertheless,  the  purpose 
of  the  officers  of  the  Metal  Trades  Department  to  work  in 
close  cooperation  with  the  Building  Trades  Department, 
with  the  end  in  view  of  having  both  departments  render 
such  service  to  each  other  as  would  contribute  to  strength- 
ening their  constituent  unions.^®  This  organization  has  not 
been  in  operation  long  enough  to  justify  an  estimate  of  its 
effectiveness,  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  its  continued 
existence  means  greater  restrictions  upon  the  use  of  ma- 
terials. 

Trade  federations  exert  another  great  influence  by  as- 
sembling into  common  council  the  unions  of  allied  indus- 
tries. Here  unions  which  formerly  existed  independently 
of  one  another  have  a  forum  for  discussion,  and  are  enabled 
to  obtain  a  knowledge  and  an  appreciation  of  their  neigh- 
bors' grievances  that  they  could  not  obtain  to  such  advan- 
tage under  any  other  conditions.  An  interesting  illustra- 
tion of  this  aspect  of  the  influence  of  a  trade  federation  is 
furnished  by  the  experiences  of  the  Allied  Printing  Trades 
Council  with  other  unions.  The  Allied  Printing  Trades 
Council  is  composed  of  the  Typographical  Union,  the  Print- 
ing Pressmen,  the  Stereotypers  and  Electrotypers,  the  Book- 
binders, and  the  Photo-Engravers.  At  a  conference  in  1908 
the  effect  of  the  council  could  be  seen  by  the  adoption  of  a 
resolution  which  recommended  "  whenever  practicable  "  the 
refusal  by  the  constituent  unions  to  use  "photo-engraved 
plates  unless  such  plates  were  stamped  with  the  union  label 

88  For  a  more  detailed  description  of  the  Metal  Trades  Depart- 
ment see  Stockton,  p.  109. 

89  Proceedings  of  the  Fourth  Annual  Convention  of  the  Metal 
Trades  Department  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  1912, 
pp.  8,  II. 


BOYCOTT  ON    MATERIALS  7 1 

of  the  International  Photo-Engravers'  Union."^**  In  the 
same  year  the  influence  of  the  council  was  extended  even 
further  when  the  International  Brotherhood  of  Paper- 
makers  was  permitted  to  send  a  representative  to  the  meet- 
ings of  the  joint  conference  board  of  the  council ;  this  repre- 
sentative, although  he  had  a  voice  in  matters  affecting  his 
union,  had  no  vote.  This  conference,  however,  adopted  a 
tentative  agreement  with  the  Papermakers'  Union  which 
provided  that  the  members  of  the  Allied  Printing  Trades 
Council  would  use  their  good  offices  in  encouraging  the  use 
of  union-made  paper  if  the  Papermakers  would  make  no 
demands  that  would  involve  them  in  contests  with  employers 
because  of  the  use  of  non-union  paper .^^  Thus  the  contact 
afforded  by  the  membership  in  a  federation  has  brought 
about  in  a  short  while  a  moderate  degree  of  discrimination 
in  the  choice  of  material.  After  three  years,  furthermore, 
the  representative  of  the  Papermakers'  Union  requested 
full  membership  in  the  council  because  the  union  "  desired 
to  become  more  closely  affiliated  with  the  printing  trades."®^ 
Although  this  request  was  not  granted,  it  is  reasonable  to 
believe  that  in  the  course  of  time  the  council  may  adopt 
resolutions  in  regard  to  the  paper  to  be  used  by  the  print- 
ing trades  similar  in  purport  to  that  which  was  adopted  in 
1908  to  regulate  the  use  of  photo-engraved  plates. 

Disregarding  for  the  time  being  the  effect  of  judicial  de- 
cisions (and  they  are  of  great  significance)  and  the  influence 
exerted  upon  the  operation  of  the  transportation  boycott  by 
the  policy  of  the  Teamsters'  Union,  the  conclusion  is  that 
there  is  a  marked  increasing  tendency  for  trade  unionists  to 
question  the  source  and  destination  of  materials."^     Al- 


»<>The  International  Bookbinder,  Tune,  1908,  p.  216. 
»i  Ibid.  '     y--.  F 

82  Ibid.,  March,  191 1,  p.  114. 

^3  This  tendency,  of  course,  becomes  the  stronger  the  more  in- 
tense is  the  desire  of  union  members  to  eliminate  the  non-unionist 
from  industry.  It  is  accordingly  stated  that  "  for  years  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  of  Labor  has  been  striving  to  bring  about  alliances 
among  national  unions.  At  present  the  Federation  seems  to  have 
in  view  the  formation  of  'departments'  in  every  group  of  allied 


72  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

though  the  present  conditions  may  not  realize  the  ideal  of 
the  Industrial  Worker  of  the  World  who  beHeves  that 
"when  the  Electrical  Workers  are  on  strike,  Garment 
Workers  should  refuse  to  run  machines  driven  by  power 
furnished  by  scab  electricians  ;"^*  or  that  of  the  socialist 
propagandist  who  states  that,  under  an  industrial  system  of 
organization,  the  crews  of  the  trains  that  bore  weapons  to 
the  "  minions  "of  the  coal-mine  operators  during  the  recent 
strikes  in  the  West  Virginia  coal-mines  would  themselves 
have  been  called  out  on  strike,  the  fact  remains  that  a  com- 
bination made  up  of  strong  trade  unions  capable  of  enforc- 
ing their  demands  and  of  trade  federations  inculcating  in 
their  members  the  desirability  of  sympathetic  action  pre- 
sents a  system  perhaps  better  adapted  to  the  rejection  of 
materials  than  does  industrial  unionism.®*^ 

trades  affiliated  with  it.  By  doing  this  the  machinery  is  provided 
for  more  vigorous  and  more  extensive  discrimination  against  the 
non-union  man"  (Stockton,  p.  121). 

»*  Weekly  Bulletin  [Garment  Workers],  March  30,  1906,  p.  4. 

^'^  The  possibilities  of  the  boycott  on  materials  have  not  been 
overlooked  by  the  critics  of  trade  unionism.  Thus  one  writer 
states :  "  The  consummation  of  such  a  scheme  [the  boycott  of  non- 
union trim]  would  compel  the  mines  which  produce,  the  smelters 
which  refine,  the  foundry  which  molds,  and  the  factory  which  as- 
sembles and  polishes,  to  reject  all  non-union  men  before  the 
finished  product  could  be  affixed  as  a  lock  or  a  knob  to  the  door 
of  one  of  our  marvelous  office  buildings.  The  same  would  be  true 
of  the  lumber  from  the  forest,  the  stone  from  the  quarries,  the 
glass  of  the  windows  and  the  bricks  of  the  walls.  All  merchandise 
would  be  proscribed  which  had  been  tainted  by  the  touch  of  the 
persecuted  non-union  man"  (Paine  Lumber  Co.,  et  al.,  v.  United 
Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners,  Brief  on  Behalf  of  Com- 
plainants— Appellees,  p.  38). 


CHAPTER   IV 
The  Boycott  on  Commodities 

A  close  analogy  exists  in  one  respect  between  boycotts  on 
materials  and  boycotts  on  commodities.  The  grievances, 
fancied  or  real,  which  cause  the  imposition  of  boycotts  on 
goods  that  enter  into  daily  consumption  are  the  same  as 
those  which  impel  a  union  workman  to  reject  unfair  ma- 
terials or  tools,  f  In  1896  the  Knights  of  Labor  imposed  a 
boycott  on  machine-made  shoes,  because  these  shoes  were 
said  to  be  driving  hand-made  shoes  from  the  market. ^ 
Even  before  this,  as  early  as  1885,  the  Can  Makers  had  be-^ 
gun  their  campaign  against  the  sale  of  machine-made  cans.® 
Similarly,  the  white  broom  makers  in  San  Francisco,  itt" 
order  to  meet  the  destructive  competition  of  Chinese  broom 
makers  and  of  convicts,  frequently  imposed  boycotts  upon 
brooms  manufactured  by  Chinese  or  by  convicts,'  and  in 
such  unions  as  the  Hatters  and  the  Garment  Workers  the 
boycott  and  the  label  have  been  frequently  invoked  against 
the  products  of  immigrant  and  prison  labor.*  The  boycott 
on  commodities,  then,  like  the  boycott  on  materials,  consti- 
tutes a  weapon  designed  originally  as  a  "means  of  combat- 
ing specific  forms  of  competition  to  which  particular  or- 
ganizations were  exposed." 

Here,  however,  the  analogy  ends.  The  boycott  on  ma- 
terials can  be  effectively  carried  out  only  by  homogeneous 
groups  of  organized  workmen,  whereas  that  on  commodi- 
ties and  persons  is  essentially  an  appeal  to  heterogeneous 
assemblies  of  consumers.     The  boycotting  unit  in  the  boy- 

1  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  January  30,  1896,  p.  i. 

*  Spedden,  p.  18. 

•The  Broom  Maker,  December,  1901,  p.  11;  May,  1902,  p.  84; 
July,  1902,  p.  112. 

*  Spedden,  p.  16. 


'^ 


74  THE   BOYCOTT   IN  AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

cott  on  materials  is  a  trade  union  or  shop  comprised  of 
closely  associated  individuals  or  trades;  in  the  boycott  on 
commodities,  on  the  other  hand,  the  unit  is  the  central  labor 
union  or  the  city  federation,  bodies  composed  of  trades  as 
unrelated  as  the  building  trades  and  the  printing  trades  and 
of  individuals  as  different  in  social  status  and  in  tempera- 
ment as  the  hod  carrier  and  the  bookbinder.  Moreover, 
the  unit  in  the  boycott  on  commodities  is  often  so  extended 
as  to  include  consumers  who  are  not  even  formally  affiliated 
with  the  labor  movement  but  whose  support  is  obtained  by 
appeals  to  their  sentiments  of  sympathy  or  of  justice. 

Although  there  are  no  accurate  statistical  data  from  which 
to  estimate  the  relative  frequency  of  the  boycotts  on  ma- 
terials and  on  commodities,  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  boy- 
cotts on  commodities  and  persons  are  by  far  the  more  nu- 
merous. The  unfair  Hsts  published  in  the  American  Fed- 
erationist,  which  often  contained  more  than  one  hundred 
names,  were  devoted  almost  exclusively  to  notices  of  boy- 
cotts on  cigars,  shoes,  beer,  and  many  similar  articles  of 
consumption.  The  same  is  true  of  the  lists  published  in 
other  labor  journals.  Nor  is  this  surprising.  Indeed,  there 
obtain  certain  considerations  of  expediency  and  necessity 
which  account  not  only  for  the  absolute  frequency  of  the 
boycott  on  commodities,  but  also  for  its  relatively  greater 
frequency. 

(i)  When  a  member  of  a  labor  union  enters  upon  the 
boycott  of  a  bakery,  for  instance,  he  suffers  as  the  result  of 
his  participation  in  the  boycott  the  slight  inconvenience  that 
may  attend  the  purchase  of  his  bread  in  a  bakery  that  is 
perhaps  farther  from  his  home  than  is  the  boycotted  bak- 
ery. Indeed,  in  all  such  boycotts,  wherever  there  is  a  suit- 
able substitute  for  the  boycotted  commodity  the  participants 
rarely  experience  significant  losses.  Participation  in  a  boy- 
cott on  materials,  however,  demands  a  greater  self-sacrifice. 
The  bookbinder  who  boycotts  unfair  gold-leaf  in  sympathy 
with  the  Gold  Beaters  must  be  prepared  to  resign  his  posi- 
tion to  the  bookbinder  who  does  not  discriminate  between 


BOYCOTT   ON    COMMODITIES  75 

fair  and  unfair  gold-leaf.  The  stone  cutter  who  boycotts 
machine-cut  stone  has  often  yielded  to  the  stone  cutter  who 
willingly  works  it.  In  fact,  the  mechanism  of  the  boycott  on 
materials  is  characterized  by  strikes,  of  longer  or  shorter  dura- 
tion depending  on  the  strength  of  the  union  involved,  during 
which  attempts  are  made  to  replace  the  strikers  who  refuse 
to  use  unfair  materials,  by  non-union  workmen,  who  have 
no  such  scruples.  It  is  natural,  therefore,  that  the  boycott 
on  commodities,  which  involves  little  cost  to  its  perpetrators, 
should  be  more  popular  and  more  generally  employed  than 
the  boycott  on  materials,  which  is  often  marked  by  signifi- 
cant losses  to  those  involved  in  its  prosecution. 

(2)  Walter  Gordon  Merritt  states  in  a  recent  article  that 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  with  its  membership  of 
2,000,000  controls  the  purchasing  power  of  10,000,000  con- 
sumers."  Disregarding  the  fact  that  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  cannot  exercise  such  complete  control  either 
over  the  purchases  of  its  2,000,000  members  or  of  their 
8,000,000  relatives,  friends,  and  sympathizers  as  Mr.  Mer- 
ritt intimates  that  it  does,  it  is,  nevertheless,  true  that  the 
labor  movement  in  America  presents  a  vast  purchasing 
power  which  has  often  responded  to  the  influence  of  labor 
leaders.  The  existence  of  such  a  large  number  of  con- 
sumers, directly  affiliated  with  one  another  in  a  national  or- 
ganization of  laborers,  must  have  the  effect  of  encouraging 
boycotts  which  will  not  be  limited  to  single  shops  or  trades, 
but  which,  overleaping  trade  boundaries,  will  enlist  the  sup- 
port of  all  organized  labor.  Such  boycotts  are,  of  course, 
those  which  are  imposed  upon  articles  of  general  consump- 
tion and  not  those  which  affect  the  use  of  tools  and  raw  ma- 
terials. 

(3)  Finally,  many  situations  arise  where  either  the  weak- 
ness or  selfishness  of  groups  of  organized  workers  or  the 
unorganized  state  of  the  laborers  in  the  industry  makes  it 
impossible  to  employ  the  boycott  on  materials  and  necessi- 
tates the  use  of  the  boycott  on  commodities.     A  situation  of 

5  "  The  Closed  Shop/*  in  North  American  Review,  vol.  cxc,  p.  66. 


76  THE- BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

this  kind  is  well  illustrated  in  the  struggle  of  the  Inter- 
national Wood  Workers'  Union  with  Atwood  Brothers, 
manufacturers  of  racks  and  boxes.  As  a  result  of  the  re- 
fusal of  this  firm  to  recognize  the  woodworkers'  union,  a 
boycott  was  placed  on  its  product.  One  of  the  largest  cus- 
tomers of  the  firm  was  the  Walter  Baker  Cocoa  Company, 
which  bought  annually  one  third  of  the  output  of  the  firm. 
In  this  case  it  was  not  possible  to  obtain  the  support  of  the 
laborers  in  the  cocoa  factory  in  the  form  of  a  refusal  to 
pack  Atwood  boxes.  The  Brockton  Central  Labor  Union 
therefore  initiated  a  boycott  on  the  cocoa  of  the  Walter 
Baker  Company,  with  the  intention  of  destroying  the  mar- 
ket of  that  firm.  The  accomplishment  of  this  end  meant 
at  the  same  time  the  loss  by  the  Atwood  Company  of  its 
most  valuable  customer.® 

The  Coopers  frequently  pursue  a  similar  mode  of  attack. 
When  the  Brewery  Workmen  refuse  to  boycott  unfair  coop- 
erage, the  Coopers  will  declare  a  boycott  on  the  product  of 
the  brewery  that  buys  unfair  cooperage,  and  will  in  that 
manner,  invoking  the  aid  of  the  more  sympathetic  consumer, 
substitute  for  the  boycott  on  materials  the  boycott  on  com- 
modities. There  are,  of  course,  many  instances  in  other 
unions  of  the  declaration  of  boycotts  on  commodities  in 
those  cases  where  there  are  no  organized  workmen,  or  where 
the  organized  workmen  are  unwilling  to  do  the  boycotting 
in  an  early  stage  in  the  manufacture  of  the  commodity. 
And  these  occurrences  are  made  all  the  more  likely  because 
of  the  fact  that  practically  every  raw  material  emerges 
sooner  or  later  in  the  i orm  of  a  consumers'  goods.  The  re- 
stricted sphere  of  labor  organization  and  the  conservatism 
of  some  unions,  the  consciousness  in  all  unionists  of  the  power 
that  inheres  in  organized  labor  as  a  multitude  of  consumers, 
and  finally  the  relatively  low  cost  to  the  participant  of  the 
boycott  on  commodities  are  the  three  important  factors  that 
have  contributed  to  the  frequent  employment  of  that  form 
of  boycott. 

«  A.  Lord,  An  Illegal  Boycott,  p.  29 ;  Stove  Mounters'  and  Range 
Workers*  Journal,  September,  1905,  p.  253. 


BOYCOTT  ON   COMMODITIES  ^^  77 

It  has  been  intimated  that  another  important  factor  in 
the  use  of  the  boycott  on  commodities  is  the  organization  of 
retail  clerks/  They,  it  is  said,  can  strengthen  the  boycott 
"by  giving  prominence  and  recommendation"  to  fair  ar- 
ticles or  by  expressly  advising  against  the  purchase  of  un- 
fair articles.  As  early  as  1894  the  president  of  the  Retail 
Clerks'  Union  of  Chicago  suggested  that  the  best  method  of 
assuring  the  success  of  a  boycott  on  consumers'  goods  was 
by  organizing  the  clerks  in  retail  stores,  and  thus  enlisting 
their  aid  in  preventing  the  purchase  of  boycotted  commodi- 
ties.® From  time  to  time  the  clerks'  union  has  taken  ac- 
tion which  was  intended  to  further  particular  boycotts.  In 
1903,  for  example,  in  a  resolution  boycotting  the  National 
Biscuit  Company,  it  was  stated  that  "  the  local  organization, 
particularly  those  of  the  grocery  clerks,  can  be  of  service  in 
this  fight  against  one  of  the  largest  corporations  in  the  coun- 
try."® The  boycott  notice  in  the  following  year  of  the  boy- 
cott by  the  United  Garment  Workers  of  the  product  of  the 
Rochester  Clothing  Combine  was  accompanied  by  the  ad- 
monition that  every  "retail  clerk  should  remember  his 
obligation  *  to  sell  union-made  *  goods  in  preference  to  those 
non-union  made."^*'  A  request,  too,  from  the  Iron  Molders' 
Union  of  Leavenworth,  Kansas,  that  the  clerks  should  use 
their  influence  to  sell  only  union-made  stoves  and  should 
hinder  the  sale  of  stoves  of  an  unfair  firm  was  answered 
by  the  expressed  hope  of  the  International  Union  that  the 
publication  of  the  boycott  notice  would  draw  from  the  re- 
tail clerks  the  support  that  the  Iron  Holders  desired.^^ 

While  it  is  no  doubt  true  that  s^ong  organizations  of 
retail  sales  agents  would  constitute  formidable  allies  in 
prosecuting  boycotts  on  commodities,  in  the  United  States 
such  organizations  have  not  attained  great  strength.     The 

7W.  G.  Merritt,  The  Neglected  Side  of  Trade  Unionism,  The 
Boycott,  p.  4.  * 

8  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  June  14,  1894,  p.  3. 

0  Proceedings  of  the  Eleventh  Convention,  in  The  Retail  Clerks* 
International  Advocate,  July,  1903,  p.  43. 

10  Retail  Clerks'  International  Advocate,  July,  1904,  p.  18. 

^^Ibid.,  April,  1904,  p.  30. 


78  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

Retail  Clerks'  International  Protective  Association  has  been 
for  the  greater  part  of  its  existence  so  concerned  with  pro- 
tracting its  own  life  and  extending  its  own  organization 
that  it  has  been  able  to  devote  Httle  time  or  energy  to  sup- 
porting the  boycotts  of  associated  organizations."  Only 
when  a  labor  union  has  acquired  considerable  strength  can  it 
afford  to  become  involved  in  disputes  of  no  immediate  con- 
cern to  itself.  Accordingly,  we  find  that  the  majority  even 
of  those  notices  of  boycotts  that  are  published  in  the  clerks* 
journal  are  couched  in  terms  of  mild  recommendation  rather 
than  of  forceful  command,  and  they  have  consequently  had 
little  influence  in  securing  the  success  of  boycotts  on  com- 
modities. 

Boycotts  on  commodities  are,  in  general,  effective  only 
when  imposed  upon  such  goods  as  are  consumed  in  large 
quantities  by  the  working  classes.  A  boycott  on  a  Chicker- 
ing  grand  piano  would  obviously  be  ineffective  because  the 
purchasers  of  that  instrument  would  not  be,  as  a  rule,  mem- 
b^ers  of  the  laboring  or  wage-earning  class.  We  find,  there- 
fore, that  the  majority  of  the  boycotts  are  imposed  upon 
such  articles  of  clothing,  food^  or  furniture  as  are  likely  to 
form  a  part  of  a  workingman's  budget.  The  boycott  has 
been  employed  frequently  and  eflFectively  by  the  Garment 
Workers  on  the  product  of  large  clothing  firms.  When,  in 
1 891,  the  garment  workers  were  forced  out  of  employment 
by  the  gigantic  lockout  inaugurated  by  twenty-one  clothing 
firms  of  Rochester,  the  Knights  of  Labor  initiated  a  coun- 
try-wide boycott  on  the  product  of  these  firms.  After  a 
few  weeks  they  reported  that  by  their  activity  they  had  in- 
duced  dealers   throughout   the   country   "to   cancel   over 

12  The  constitutions  of  the  Retail  Clerks'  International  Protec- 
tive Association  contain  no  provisions  that  either  require  of  or 
recommend  to  the  members  of  the  union  their  support  in  urging 
the  sale  of  fair  commodities  or  in  preventing  the  purchase  of  the 
unfair.  Spedden  points  out  that  local  unions  of  the  clerks  in  cer- 
tain cities  in  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  and  Illinois,  where  the  clerks  are 
better  organized,  have  adopted  rules  providing  "that  each  union 
clerk  shall  be  fined  for  selling  certain  kinds  of  goods  not  bearing 
the  label"  (p.  69).  He  agrees  later,  however,  that  the  "clerks  are 
in  most  cities  very  weak  and  could  not  enforce  such  rules." 


BOYCOTT   ON    COMMODITIES  79 

$500,000  worth  of  orders."^^  In  their  struggles  with  the 
clothing  manufacturers  in  Chicago  in  1901  and  1905  the 
United  Garment  Workers  again  prosecuted  vigorous  boy- 
cotts. The  strike  of  that  union  against  Marx  and  Haas, 
of  St.  Louis,  in  1910,  was  supplemented  by  a  boycott  in 
which  the  support  of  every  available  agency  was  enlisted 
in  the  effort  to  destroy  the  market  of  the  firm.  It  was  re- 
ported in  the  Journal  that  all  the  general  organizers  of  the 
union  were  at  work,  and  that  special  committees  of  the  local 
unions  were  on  the  road  and  were  "to  remain  in  the  field 
until  the  battle  was  won."^* 

That  these  boycotts  had  any  chance  of  success  was,  of 
course,  due  to  the  willingness  of  organized  labor  and  its 
supporters  to  discriminate  in  their  purchases  between  fair 
and  unfair  goods.  The  Hatters'  Union,  which  had  in  1902 
a  membership  of  only  six  thousand,  was  able  because  of 
this  ability  to  enlist  the  sympathy  of  laborers  throughout 
the  country,  to  wage  successful  boycotts  against  firms  which 
supplied  national  markets.  The  boycott  of  the  union  against 
the  Roelof  Hat  Company  was  claimed  to  have  "injured  the 
business  of  that  company  to  the  extent  of  $25o,ooo."** 
And  Mr.  Loewe  of  D.  E.  Loewe  and  Company,  testifying 
in  what  was  destined  later  to  develop  into  one  of  the  most 
famous  cases  of  its  kind,  stated  that  the  sales  of  his  busi- 
ness in  1902,  one  year  before  the  imposition  of  the  boycott, 
were  $400,000.  In  the  year  of  the  boycott,  however,  sales 
were  from  $160,000  to  $170,000  less.^® 

In  the  hands  of  the  Brewery  Workmen  the  boycott  has 
been  an  indispensable  weapon.  Again  and  again  in  the 
history  of  the  union  it  was  able  to  cope  with  powerful  em- 
ployers' associations  only  through  its  abiHty  to  prevent  the 
sale  of  the  brewery  products.     From  the  boycott  in  Cin- 

i»  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  April  2,  1891,  p.  i ;  April  30, 
1891,  p.  I. 

1* Weekly  Bulletin  [United  Garment  Workers],  May  20,  1910, 
P-  3. 

1*^  Journal  of  the  United  Hatters,  January,  1902,  p.  7 ;  May,  1902, 
pp.  20,  22. 

^^Ibid.,  November,  1903,  p.  i. 


*f 


80  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

cinnati  in  1881"  to  the  present  day  that  club  has  been  often 
used  against  large  and  wealthy  firms.  In  the  words  of  a 
historian  of  the  Brewery  Workmen's  Union :  "  The  boycott 
has  played  a  most  important  part  in  the  history  of  the  brew- 
ery workers'  movement  in  America,  more  important  per- 
haps than  in  that  of  any  other  trade.  The  ten-year  boycott 
against  the  New  York  *Pool  Beer,*  which  was  decided 
chiefly  by  the  attitude  of  the  New  England  workingmen; 
the  boycott  against  the  St.  Louis  Beer,  which  ended  favor- 
ably for  the  brewery  workers  on  account  of  the  strong  sup- 
port of  the  Knights  of  Labor  in  the  South ;  in  short,  every- 
one of  the  greatest  struggles  of  the  brewery  workers  was 
decided  by  the  boycott,  which  proved  the  strongest  weapon 
in  the  hands  of  the  workingmen  in  these  conflicts."*® 

One  of  the  most  extensive  and  spectacular  boycotts  in 
recent  years  was  that  begun  in  1906  and  continued  for  sev- 
eral years  thereafter  against  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range 
Company.  It  was  precipitated  by  the  refusal  of  that  com- 
pany to  continue  the  nine-hour  working  day  of  the  metal 
polishers  and  by  the  violation  of  an  alleged  agreement  be- 
tween the  company  and  the  International  Brotherhood  of 
Foundry  Employees.'^®  At  the  1906  convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  application  was  made  by  the 
Metal  Polishers'  Union  that  the  firm  be  placed  on  the  unfair 
list  of  that  organization.  In  accordance  with  the  custom- 
ary procedure,  the  matter  was  referred  to  the  executive 
council  of  the  Federation  for  adjustment.  Vice-President 
Valentine  was  designated  as  the  representative  of  the  coun- 
cil for  the  purpose  of  conferring  with  the  Buck's  Stove  and 
Range  Company,  and,  if  possible,  of  effecting  an  amicable 
settlement  of  the  dispute.  Although  the  endorsement  of 
this  boycott  meant  the  infliction  of  great  injury  upon  the 
union  iron  molders  who  were  at  that  time  employed  by 
the  Buck's  Stove  Company,  Mr.  Valentine,  who  was  also 

*^  Schliiter,  p.  100. 

18  Ibid.,  p.  238. 

1®  Report  of  President,  in  Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-seventh 
Annual  Convention  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  1907,  p. 
35;  American  Federationist,  September,  1910,  p.  809. 


BOYCOTT  ON   COMMODITIES  8 1 

president  of  the  Iron  Molders*  International  Union,  re- 
ported that  the  attitude  of  the  company  precluded  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  peaceful  settlement,  and  therefore  recommended 
that  the  boycott  be  endorsed.^^ 

It  is  probable  that,  under  normal  conditions,  the  boycott 
on  the  product  of  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Company 
would  have  been  neither  more  nor  less  effective  than  any  of 
the  other  numerous  boycotts  the  notices  of  which  appeared 
monthly  in  the  American  Federationist ;  nor  would  there 
have  been  any  occasion  for  the  involved  legal  complications 
which  later  actually  arose.  There  was  present,  however, 
a  combination  of  circumstances  that  was  directly  respon- 
sible in  shaping  the  future  course  of  the  boycott.  Mr.  J.  W. 
Van  Cleave,  president  of  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Com- 
pany, was  at  the  same  time  president  of  the  National  As- 
sociation of  Manufacturers  and  vice-president  of  the  Citi- 
zens' Alliance.*^  Both  of  these  organizations  had  been  no- 
toriously antagonistic  to  organized  labor.  Even  after  the 
imposition  of  the  boycott,  Mr.  Van  Cleave,  in  both  his  offi- 
cial and  private  capacity,  further  emphasized  his  hostility  to 
union  labor  by  delivering  many  speeches  against  the  system 
of  organized  labor  and  against  its  leaders.  The  report  was 
spread,  too,  that  the  National  Manufacturers*  Association 
was  raising  a  fund  of  $1,500,000  to  be  used  under  the  di- 
rection of  Van  Cleave  in  an  attempt  to  disrupt  the  labor 
organizations  of  the  country.*^  The  publication  of  these 
statements  in  the  American  Federationist  and  in  other  jour- 
nals soon  resulted,  of  course,  in  arousing  among  all  trades 
unionists  and  their  sympathizers  feelings  of  the  strongest 
resentment  against  Van  Cleave  and  his  company.     The  con- 

20  Report  of  President,  in  Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-ninth 
Annual  Convention  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  1909, 
p.  17.  The  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Company  first  appeared  on  the 
unfair  list  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  in  the  Federa- 
tionist of  May,  1907. 

21  Buck's  Stove  &  Range  Company  vs.  American  Federation  of 
Labor,  et  al.,  Pleadings,  Preliminary  Injunction  Order,  Opinion  of 
Justice  Gould,  and  Testimony  on  Hearing  for  Permanent  Injunc- 
tion in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  p.  360. 

22  Ibid.,  p.  368. 


82  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

sequence  was  a  vigorous  general  boycott  in  all  those  sec- 
tions of  the  country  where  labor  organization  was  strong. 
Soon  the  boycotted  firm  began  to  receive  letters  from  its 
customers  stating  that  unless  the  company  could  settle  its 
dispute  with  organized  labor  they  would  be  forced  to  have 
their  orders  filled  by  firms  against  whom  union  labor  had 
no  grievance.^^  The  company,  however,  did  not  yield;  in- 
stead, recourse  was  had  to  the  courts,  which  issued  injunc- 
tions restraining  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  and  its 
affiliated  bodies  from  further  prosecuting  the  boycott.  The 
case  was  appealed,  and  Gompers  and  two  of  his  associates** 
were  accused  and  convicted  of  having  violated  the  injunc- 
tion." 

In  the  midst  of  this  litigation  and  turmoil,  however,  Van 
Cleave  died,*®  and  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Company 
was  reorganized  under  auspices  friendly  to  union  labor. 
But  so  deep  rooted  had  been  the  passions  aroused  by  the 
struggle  that  several  official  statements  by  President  Gom- 
pers notifying  union  members  that  the  boycott  had  been 
raised  and  that  the  newly  organized  firm  was  deserving  of 
their  patronage  had  to  be  issued  for  publication  throughout 
the  country  before  the  boycott  of  the  products  of  the  firm 
was  brought  to  an  actual  close. 

Although  a  surface  analysis  would  seem  to  indicate  that, 
in  general,  the  boycott  on  commodities  will  be  effective  in  all 
communities  where  there  is  a  large  number  of  organized 
laborers,  yet  the  facts  show  that  in  order  to  act  as  an  eflfec- 

23  Buck's  Stove  &  Range  Company  vs.  American  Federation  of 
Labor,  et  al.,  Pleadings,  Preliminary  Injunction  Order,  Opinion  of 
Justice  Gould,  and  Testimony  on  Hearing  for  Permanent  Injunction 
in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  p.  34  ff. 

24  John  Mitchell  and  Frank  Morrison. 

25  Gompers  was  finally  sentenced  to  imprisonment  for  thirty  days 
and  the  other  two  were  fined  $500  each.  These  penalties  were 
later  lifted  by  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  on  the  ground  that 
the  three  year  limit  prescribed  by  the  statute  of  limitations  had  ex- 
pired when  action  was  instituted  against  the  defendants  for  con- 
tempt (233  U.  S.  604). 

2«Van  Cleave  died  May  15,  1910.  See  American  Industries, 
August,  1910,  p.  6. 


BOYCOTT  ON   COMMODITIES  83 

live  boycotting  agency,  union  labor  must  be  not  only  nu- 
merous, but  also  highly  localized.  The  presence  in  a  city 
of  many  union  members,  scattered  as  individuals  in  different 
sections  of  the  community  and  surrounded  by  people  who 
have  neither  sympathy  with  nor  understanding  of  labor's 
grievances,  prevents  that  close  personal  contact  and  that 
easy  exchange  and  discussion  of  information — not  to  speak 
of  the  impossibility  under  such  conditions  of  scrutinizing 
the  purchases  of  one's  neighbor — which  is  essential  to  the 
success  of  a  boycott.  Where  the  laboring  community  is  a 
closely  knit,  intimate  assembly,  the  boycott  is  waged  by  col- 
lective efforts  impelled  by  a  collective  conscience;  where 
labor  is  scattered,  the  boycott  is  characterized  by  weak  in- 
dividual effort.  In  the  first  case  the  boycott  is  usually  suc- 
cessful; in  the  second,  its  success  is  doubtful.  Boycotts 
on  commodities  have,  accordingly,  been  most  effectively  en- 
forced in  those  places  where  the  laboring  population  is  in 
the  majority  and  where,  as  for  instance  in  mining  com- 
munities, the  members  live  in  close  contact  with  one  an- 
other. Thus,  Professor  Barnett  points  out  that  "where 
the  local  labor  federations  are  active  and  strong,  as  in  the 
well  organized  mining  and  industrial  towns  of  the  middle 
west,  the  boycott  is  a  more  powerful  weapon  in  the  hands 
of  the  local  typographical  unions."*^  In  1900,  too,  the  sec- 
retary of  the  Journeymen  Bakers'  and  Confectioners'  Na- 
tional Union  remarked  that  in  the  mining  districts  there  was 
a  universal  demand  for  the  union  label  on  cracker  boxes 
and,  therefore,  a  universal  rejection  of  non-union  products.^® 
The  Broom  Makers,  likewise,  found  that  no  "  brooms  could 
be  sold  in  the  mining  towns  of  Illinois  unless  they  bear  the 
union  label,"  and  they  further  testified  that  the  members  of 
the  United  Mine  Workers  had  exerted  invaluable  efforts  in 
pushing  the  boycott  on  products  unfair  to  the  Broom 
Makers.^® 

27  The  Printers,  p.  270. 

28  American  Federationist,  June,  1900,  p.  172. 

2»Ibid.,  March,  1900,  p.  70;  The  Broom  Maker,  February,  1902, 
p.  32. 


84  THE  BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

The  officers  of  American  trade  unions  by  no  means  ig- 
nore the  futility  of  making  an  appeal  to  the  general  con- 
sumer in  all  cases  of  boycotts  on  commodities  and  permit- 
ting their  activities  to  end  there.  On  the  contrary,  they  are 
fully  alive  to  the  fact  that  for  many  commodities  there  are 
special  groups  of  consumers  whose  cooperation  and  active 
support  are  essential  to  the  success  of  a  boycott.  It  is  not 
uncommon,  therefore,  to  find  that  many  unions,  instead  of 
waging  a  general  boycott,  attempt  first  to  enlist  the  support 
of  such  groups  of  consumers.  For  example,  in  the  boycott 
in  1895  against  the  Rand  McNally  Printing  Company,  the 
manufacturers  of  maps,  school-books,  and  stationery,  it 
was  found  that  the  heaviest  purchasers  of  the  products  of 
the  firm  were  "  county  boards,  state  officers  and  educational 
boards."^®  The  result  was  that  a  general  boycott,  which 
would  have  been  fruitless,  was  converted  into  a  struggle  in 
which  political  pressure  and  the  concerted  efforts  of  the 
unions  were  brought  to  bear  upon  public  elective  and  ap- 
pointive officials  with  a  view  of  having  them  withdraw  their 
valuable  patronage  from  the  unfair  firm.  Since  then,  this 
experience  has  been  duplicated  in  many  disputes  of  the  In- 
ternational Brotherhood  of  Bookbinders  with  publishing 
companies.^^ 

The  frequent  efforts  of  the  labor  movement  to  form  an 
alliance  with  farmers'  organizations  is  another  aspect  of 
the  same  situation. "  In  addition  to  the  substantial  aid  which 
such  organizations  can  extend,  which  will  be  discussed 
later,  they  can  be  of  great  service  in  boycotts  against  firms, 
like  the  International  Harvester  Company,  employing  great 
armies  of  laborers,  whose  products  find  a  market  almost  ex- 
clusively among  farmers.  For  example,  when  a  boycott 
was  declared  against  the  Studebaker  Manufacturing  Com- 
pany, manufacturers  of  wagons,  it  was  suggested  that  "  the 
farmers'  organizations  could  help  by  demanding  fair  wages 
in  the  making  of  farm  wagons."** 

80  American  Federationist,  June,  1895,  p.  64. 

21  See  for  example,  the  International  Bookbinder,  May,  1901,  p.  8. 

82  American  Federationist,  June,  1895,  p.  63. 


BOYCOTT  ON   COMMODITIES  85 

At  times  this  appeal  to  special  groups  of  consumers  takes 
the  form  of  requests  by  the  unions  to  organized  bodies  that 
they  exercise  the  pressure  of  persuasion  on  the  purchasers 
of  certain  products.  When  the  Metal  Polishers  imposed  a 
boycott  on  the  National  Cash  Register  Company,  there  was 
discussed  the  advisability  of  appealing  in  particular  to  the 
Retail  Clerks'  Association  and  to  the  International  Bar- 
tenders' League  in  order  to  obtain  their  support  in  prevent- 
ing the  sale  of  the  registers.^'  Similarly,  in  191 1,  the  inter- 
national president  of  the  same  union  reported  that  he  had 
gone  "  from  Cleveland  to  Boston  to  attend  the  Bartenders* 
and  Waiters'  convention  for  the  purpose  of  calling  their  at- 
tention to  the  great  assistance  they  could  render  us  [the 
union]  in  the  installation  and  use  of  bar  supplies."^*  Ap- 
peals of  an  analogous  character  have  also  been  made  to 
"  Retail  Liquor  Dealers'  Associations  "  of  various  localities 
in  the  belief  that  their  members  would  divert  their  patron- 
age from  unfair  firms.  An  appeal  to  another  special  group 
of  consumers  is  illustrated  in  the  boycott  against  a  bedstead 
company.  A  request  was  directed  to  the  hotels  that  ordi- 
narily purchased  the  product  of  this  unfair  company  that 
they  should  withdraw  their  patronage.*' 

This  discussion  leads  to  the  conclusion  that,  although 
"  the  boycott  is  a  potent  and  effective  weapon  "  when  "  the 
enemy  is  engaged  in  a  business  dependent  for  its  success 
on  the  patronage  and  support  of  the  consuming  public,"  it 

83  The  Journal  [Metal  Polishers,  Brass  Polishers,  Brass  Molders, 
and  Brass  Workers],  February,  1902,  p.  16. 

"Ibid.,  June,  191 1,  p.  15. 

«5  Ibid.,  June,  1900,  p.  888.  It  may  happen  that  a  significant  share 
of  the  business  of  an  establishment  can  be  ascribed  to  the  custom 
of  a  single  person  whose  earnings  are  in  turn  dependent  on  the 
support  of  a  large  number  of  consumers.  In  that  case,  when  a 
boycott  is  placed  upon  a  firm  of  this  class,  an  eflfort  is  made  by 
organized  labor  to  effect  the  withdrawal  of  the  individual's  patron- 
age. A  case  in  point  was  the  boycott  on  a  bookbinding  establish- 
ment which  bound  all  of  the  books  written  by  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox. 
The  local  unions  of  the  bookbinders  were,  therefore,  notified  to 
write  to  Mrs.  Wilcox,  who  is  notoriously  friendly  to  labor,  and  to 
"request  that  she  cease  patronizing"  the  unfair  firm  (The  Inter- 
national Bookbinder,  November,  1901,  p.  4). 


86  THE   BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

exhibits  its  greatest  effectiveness  under  two  conditions :  first, 
when  a  large  proportion  of  the  product  of  the  firm  is  con- 
sumed by  communities  of  laborers,  and  secondly,  where 
there  are  special  groups  of  consumers  who  feel  that  labor 
can  in  turn  bring  to  bear  upon  them  effective  pressure  of  a 
political  or  economic  nature.  In  both  cases  the  result  is 
obviously  a  substantial  loss  by  the  boycotted  firm;  and  in 
the  second  case  there  is  often  the  additional  advantage  that 
the  cost  of  executing  the  boycott  is  much  reduced,  since  the 
union  avoids,  at  the  outset  at  least,  the  necessity  of  adver- 
tising the  boycotted  goods  among  the  great  body  of  con- 
sumers. 

A  boycott  on  commodities  falls  primarily  upon  the  prod- 
ucts of  firms  with  whom  some  section  of  organized  labor 
has  had  difficulties.  In  this  form  the  boycott  is  simple.  It 
does  not,  however,  long  retain  its  original  simplicity,  but 
soon  acquires  extensive  ramifications.  Persons  who  were 
not  even  remotely  connected  with  the  dispute  at  its  incep- 
tion are  dragged  in  and  become  themselves  subject  to 
boycott.  This  extension  of  a  boycott  upon  an  article  of 
consumption  usually  emerges  in  the  form  of  a  boycott  on 
the  business  that  sells,  among  other  things,  the  boycotted 
commodity.  When  a  union,  for  example,  boycotts  hats,  it 
does  not  content  itself  with  refusing  to  buy  of  a  haber- 
dasher the  commodity  in  question,  but  everything  he  sells 
becomes  subject  to  boycott  until  he  agrees  to  eliminate  from 
his  business  the  unfair  product.  In  1901  the  Journeymen 
Bakers'  and  Confectioners'  International  Union,  in  accord- 
ance with  this  principle,  imposed  a  general  boycott  upon 
all  "stores,  restaurants  and  hotels"  that  sold  any  of  the 
products  of  the  National  Biscuit  Company,  which  had  itself 
been  previously  boycotted.^®  Where  a  retailer  sells  only 
one  commodity  or  one  principal  commodity,  the  boycott  on 
a  business  and  the  boycott  on  a  commodity  are,  of  course, 
equivalent.     Where  the  commodity  boycotted  is  a  foodstuff 

8»  Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-first  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1901,  p.  60. 


BOYCOTT   ON    COMMODITIES  87 

or  an  article  of  clothing  that  is  usually  sold  in  conjunction 
with  other  articles,  as  is  particularly  the  case  with  many 
commodities  sold  in  the  general  merchandise  stores  of  small 
towns,  the  boycott  on  a  business  is  a  far  more  effective 
weapon.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  easier  to  teach  the  con- 
sumer to  boycott  a  person  than  to  boycott  a  commodity.  In 
addition,  it  may  play  more  serious  havoc  with  his  business 
than  would  a  boycott  on  a  single  good.  If  the  boycott  is 
restricted  to  a  commodity,  a  retail  dealer,  particularly  when 
he  has  had  long  business  dealings  with  the  unfair  firm,  may 
often  continue  to  keep  the  goods  in  stock  on  the  theory  that 
the  trouble  will  soon  blow  over  without  his  active  partici- 
pation. As  soon,  however,  as  the  boycott  is  extended  to  his 
entire  business,  the  probability  of  incurring  substantial 
losses  becomes  so  great  as  to  force  him  at  once  to  reject 
the  unfair  goods. 

A  boycott  on  a  retail  dealer  who  acts  as  a  distributor  of 
unfair  goods  is  justified  on  the  ground  that  his  business  is 
actually  an  agency  of  the  boycotted  firm  and  as  such  is  auto- 
matically included  in  the  original  action.  Often,  however, 
the  boycott  is  extended  to  cover  persons  and  things  that 
are  not  so  obviously  implicated  in  the  original  dispute.  The 
stone  cutters  of  Bedford,  Indiana,  for  example,  boycotted 
the  hotel  at  which  scab  stone  cutters  stayed,  and  then  threat- 
ened to  boycott  a  theatrical  performance  because  the  actors 
boarded  at  the  same  hotel.^^  Similarly,  in  1888,  the  Broth- 
erhood of  Locomotive  Engineers  boycotted  the  Democratic 
national  ticket  because  the  delegates  to  the  national  conven- 
tion had  ridden  over  the  unfair  Chicago,  Burlington,  and 
Quincy  Railroad.^^  In  their  extension  of  boycotts  to  groups 
foreign  to  the  original  dispute,  the  theory  of  trade  unions 
seems  to  be:  first,  that  any  one  coming  in  contact  in  one 
capacity  or  another  with  a  boycotted  article  countenances 
its  sale  and  exposes  himself  to  a  boycott,  and,  secondly,  that 
under  conditions  where  the  boycott  cannot  be  effective  upon 

s*^  Stone  Cutters'  Journal,  April,  1906,  p.  17. 

38  Journal  of  United  Labor,  June  30,  1888,  p.  2653. 


88  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

one  object  it  is  desirable  to  shift  the  ban  to  a  closely  or 
distantly  related  object. 

Occasionally  the  members  of  firms  whose  products  are 
not  susceptible  to  the  boycott  are  at  the  same  time  interested 
in  other  industries  whose  products  are  easily  boycotted.  In 
this  event  a  boycott  is  imposed  upon  this  new  industry.  In 
the  early  history  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  a 
steel  company  of  Pittsburgh  refused  to  endorse  the  scale  of 
the  Amalgamated  Association  of  Iron  and  Steel  Workers. 
Inasmuch  as  the  product  of  the  company  was  such  as  not  to 
enter  into  the  budget  of  a  laborer,  it  could  not  be  effectively 
boycotted.  A  member  of  the  firm  of  the  steel  company  was, 
however,  at  the  same  time  the  joint  owner  of  a  large  coffee 
plant.  A  boycott  was  therefore  ordered  on  the  product  of 
this  associated  firm.'®  A  slightly  different  situation  was 
presented  in  the  boycott  against  the  Jamestown  Street  Rail- 
way Company  of  Jamestown,  New  York.  Here  there  could 
be  no  effective  boycott  because  no  competitive  route  existed 
which  passengers  could  use  in  preference  to  that  which  was 
to  be  boycotted.  The  owners  of  the  street  railway  com- 
pany happened,  however,  to  be  also  the  owners  of  an  amuse- 
ment park,  from  which  patronage  could  be  far  more  easily 
diverted  than  from  a  street  railway  Hne ;  the  park  was  con- 
sequently promptly  placed  upon  the  unfair  list.**' 

The  extension  of  the  boycott  by  labor  unions  does  not 
stop  at  the  products  of  allied  industries,  but  frequently  as- 
sumes a  personal  aspect.  Such  boycotts  appear  either  as 
attempts  to  isolate  or  ostracize  individuals  who  have  ex- 
hibited evidences  of  their  hostility  to  labor,  or  as  attempts  to 
impose  political  boycotts  upon  such  persons.  When  the 
Garment  Workers  were  involved  in  1905  in  their  severe 
struggles  with  the  employers'  association  of  clothing  manu- 
facturers of  Chicago,  the  attempt  was  made  to  boycott  one 
of  the  employers  who  was  active  in  the  direction  of  the 
employers*  association  by  withholding  from  the  hotel  where 

8^  Proceedings  of  the  Third  Annual  Convention  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  1888,  p.  26. 

*o  Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-first  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1901,  p.  132. 


BOYCOTT   ON    COMMODITIES  89 

he  was  a  guest  fuel  and  articles  of  food.  Effective  carry- 
ing out  of  the  boycott  was  made  possible  through  the  sup- 
port of  coal- wagon  drivers  and  teamsters  in  other  indus- 
tries.*^ This  form  of  the  boycott  constituted  practically  a 
reversion  to  the  type  of  boycott  as  practised  against  the 
Irish  land  agents.  It  had,  however,  a  duration  of  only  an 
hour  in  this  case,  and  is,  needless  to  say,  not  often  employed. 
The  political  boycott,  which  is  imposed  upon  candidates  for 
public  office  who,  in  the  conduct  of  their  personal  business, 
have  been  unfair  to  organized  labor,  is  both  more  frequent 
and  more  effective.  Thus,  the  owner  of  a  bookbinding  es- 
tabHshment  in  Baltimore  had  been  for  some  time  unfair  to 
the  local  union  of  bookbinders,  but  the  customers  of  the  firm 
were  such  that  it  was  impossible  to  wage  a  successful  boy- 
cott on  his  establishment.  When  he  became  in  191 3  the 
candidate  for  a  municipal  office,  a  vigorous  political  boycott 
was  initiated  against  his  candidacy ;  his  defeat  was  later  at- 
tributed by  many  to  the  opposition  of  organized  labor  to  his 
candidacy. 

The  boycotts  on  newspapers  afford  the  best  illustration 
of  the  automatic  and  effective  character  of  extensions  of 
the  boycott  to  others  than  those  originally  involved.  Ob- 
viously a  newspaper  can  be  attacked  in  two  ways.  In  the 
first  place,  its  circulation  can  be  reduced  by  an  appeal  to 
subscribers.  Once  the  circulation  is  reduced,  the  news- 
paper becomes  an  undesirable  or  an  ineffective  advertising 
medium  and  it  loses  its  advertisers.  The  process  is,  how- 
ever, more  often  reversed,  and  this  constitutes  the  second 
method  of  attack.  The  number  of  subscribers  of  an  urban 
newspaper  is  usually  large  and  scattered ;  it  might,  therefore, 
be  a  considerable  expense  to  produce  significant  gaps  in  its 
subscription  Hsts.  Pressure  is  then  put  upon  the  adver- 
tisers; and  if  this  is  at  all  effective,  the  loss  in  revenue  to 
the  newspaper  is  so  great  that  it  must  soon  capitulate.** 

*i  Weekly  Bulletin  [United  Garment  Workers],  March  24,  1905, 
p.  3. 

*2  Sartorius  v.  Waltershausen  states  that  in  a  boycott  on  a  news- 
paper it  is  more  important  to  concentrate  first  against  the  circula- 
tion rather  than  against  the  advertisers,  for  if  the  circulation  falls 


90  THE  BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

Under  the  Knights  of  Labor  the  boycott  against  news- 
papers and  their  advertisers  was  frequently  imposed.  In 
1880  the  Pittsburgh  Daily  Times  published  an  account  of 
the  secret  transactions  of  the  convention  of  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  which  had  been  presumably  overheard  by  a  reporter ; 
the  Knights  claimed  misrepresentation,  and  boycotted  the 
paper  and  all  persons  who  advertised  in  or  subscribed  to 
it.*^  In  the  report  on  "  Strikes  and  Boycotts  "  made  at  the 
convention  of  1887  it  was  stated  that  many  boycotts  had 
been  imposed  on  "  local  newspapers  that  were  hostile  to  the 
order,  or  that  were  run  with  non-union  men."  "  As  soon  as 
the  united  boy  cotters  strike  at  the  vitals  of  the  newspapers, 
the  columns  of  advertisement,"  the  report  continues,  "the 
paper  succumbs.  In  that  case  the  offensive  newspaper  is 
read  in  the  assemblies.  All  stores  advertising  in  it  arc 
noted,  and  the  merchants  are  politely  and  *  with  many  ex- 
pressions of  regret '  notified  by  a  special  committee  that  no 
member  of  our  organization  will  patronize  or  even  enter 
their  stores  as  long  as  they  advertise  their  goods  in  a  paper 
*so  unjust  and  so  bitter  against  our  Order.'  .  .  .  No  re- 
tailer is  willing  ...  to  pay  a  high  price  for  advertisement 
whose  only  result  is  to  drive  hundreds  of  customers  from 
his  store,"**  so  he  withdraws  his  advertisement  and  thus 
helps  to  make  effective  the  boycott  of  the  Order  on  the 
newspaper. 

Simultaneous  with  and  later  succeeding  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  the  International  Typographical  Union  from  1880 
on  constantly  employed  the  boycott  on  newspapers  as  a 
weapon  in  its  fight  for  the  organization  of  unfair  news- 
paper shops.*^  The  most  famous  of  these  boycotts  was 
perhaps  that  imposed  upon  the  New  York  Tribune  in  1884. 

off,  advertising  in  that  paper  ceases  per  se  (Die  Nord-Amerikan- 
ischen  Gewerkschaften,  p.  242).  He  does  not,  however,  take  into 
consideration  the  relatively  smaller  cost  involved  in  appealing  to 
a  few  advertisers  as  against  the  expense  involved  in  announcing 
the  boycott  to  thousands  of  subscribers.  In  practice,  nevertheless, 
both  movements  are  carried  on  simultaneously. 

*^  Proceedings,  1880,  p.  236. 

**  Proceedings,  1887,  p.  1881. 

*«  Barnett,  The  Printers,  p.  268. 


BOYCOTT  ON   COMMODITIES  9 1 

Originally  the  Tribune  had  been  the  property  of  Horace 
Greeley,  a  friend  of  union  labor  and  himself  at  one  time 
the  president  of  a  local  printers*  union.  The  paper  passed 
by  sale  into  the  hands  of  Whitelaw  Reid,  who  in  1877  an- 
nounced his  hostility  to  the  printers  by  ordering  a  reduc- 
tion in  wages.  For  a  time  the  printers'  union  was  unable 
to  organize  the  Tribune  office ;  but  in  1883,  after  it  had  suc- 
ceeded in  enrolling  in  the  union  a  few  of  the  men  in  the 
office,  an  agreement  was  made  between  the  Tribune,  in  con- 
junction with  several  other  newspapers,  and  the  local  typo- 
graphical union.  In  December  of  that  year  the  Tribune 
broke  the  agreement.  Several  weeks  later  7400  local  union- 
ists took  up  the  boycott  on  the  New  York  Tribune  and  on 
all  who  were  connected  with  that  paper.  As  a  medium 
for  the  publication  of  news  concerning  the  progress  of  the 
boycott  and  of  articles  encouraging  its  more  vigorous  ap- 
plication, the  New  York  local  union  of  printers  founded  a 
weekly  newspaper  called  the  Boycotter.  While  the  fight 
was  in  progress,  a  presidential  election  was  held  in  which 
Cleveland  was  opposed  for  the  presidency  by  Blaine,  the 
choice  of  the  Tribune  for  that  office;  the  subsequent  elec- 
tion of  Cleveland  was  attributed  by  members  of  the  unions 
to  the  political  boycott  imposed  upon  Blaine  following  the 
support  by  the  Tribune  of  his  candidacy.*® 

This  boycott  was  followed  by  many  others,  some  imposed 
by  the  International  Union  and  others  imposed  and  waged 
by  local  unions.  In  all,  however,  energetic  and  in  the  main 
successful  efforts  were  made  to  force  the  withdrawal  from 
the  boycotted  journals  of  profitable  advertisements.  In  the 
boycott  on  the  Los  Angeles  Times  it  was  reported  that  the 
paper  had  lost  more  than  three  fourths  of  its  out-of-town 
advertisers.*^  Likewise,  in  the  boycott  against  the  New 
York  Sun  there  was  published  a  list  of  department  stores 
which  had  discontinued  their  advertisements,  the  paper  thus 
losing  a  source  of  revenue  that  was  peculiarly  profitable  be- 

*«Von     Waltershausen,     Die     Nord-Amerikanischen     Gewerk- 
schaften,  p.  244. 
♦7  Retail  Clerks'  International  Advocate,  April,  1903,  p.  18. 


92  THE  BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

cause  of  the  frequency  with  which  department  stores  ad- 
vertise and  because  of  the  size  of  their  advertisements.*® 
It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  success  in  boycotts  on 
newspapers  was  obtained  only  after  the  unions  had,  on  sev- 
eral occasions,  carried  on  vigorous  boycotts  on  the  estab- 
lishments of  recalcitrant  advertisers.*^ 

During  the  entire  history  of  the  employment  of  the  boy- 
cott on  commodities,  efforts  have  been  constantly  made 
under  the  Knights  of  Labor  to  provide  necessary  auxiliaries 
to  the  boycott  and  under  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
to  discover  an  adequate  substitute  for  it.  These  efforts  can 
be  ascribed  to  the  influence  of  several  factors. 

In  the  first  place,  the  boycott  is  in  itself,  in  the  last  anal- 
ysis, an  incomplete  weapon;  to  be  completely  effective,  it 
must  be  equipped  with  a  complementary  mechanism.  Dis- 
satisfaction with  one  firm  implies  satisfaction  with  another. 
Similarly,  the  boycott  and  the  withdrawal  of  patronage 
from  an  unfair  firm  implies  the  throwing  of  that  patronage 
to  a  fair  firm.  Furthermore,  when  a  boycott  is  placed  upon 
one  commodity  or  business,  it  is  necessary  for  those  man- 
aging the  boycott  to  have  at  hand  a  competitor  whom  or  a 
substitute  which  they  can  recommend  to  their  friends  and 
sympathizers.  For  example,  in  the  boycott  by  the  Knights 
of  Labor  of  the  products  of  a  leather  syndicate,  branches 
of  a  fair  firm  were  established  by  the  Order  in  Texas,  Ne- 
braska, and  Kansas,  so  that  it  might  be  possible  "  to  supply 
a  fair  article"  when  the  purchasers  were  requested  to  re- 
fuse the  goods  of  the  syndicate.**^  The  establishment  by 
Mr.  W.  R.  Hearst  of  the  Los  Angeles  Examiner  during  the 
boycott  by  the  International  Typographical  Union  of  the 
Los  Angeles  Times  can  be  attributed  to  similar  motives." 

*8  Journal  of  the  United  Hatters,  June,  1901,  p.  5. 

*^  American  Federationist,  November,  1901,  p.  485;  Coopers'  In- 
ternational Journal,  June,  1903,  p.  247. 

^50  Report  of  the  General  Executive  Board  at  the  Twelfth  Regular 
Session  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  1888, 
p.  88. 

SI  Barnett,  The' Printers,  p.  272. 


BOYCOTT  ON   COMMODITIES  93 

In  the  second  place,  the  opinion  has  often  been  voiced  that 
the  boycott  defeats  its  own  ends  by  attracting  toward  the 
boycotted  firm  the  patronage  of  many  consumers  who  are 
hostile  to  labor  and  who  would  gladly  patronize  firms  which 
labor  had  declared  unfair.  In  such  a  strain  writes  a  cor- 
respondent to  the  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  in  1889. 
"  The  notoriety  attending  the  imposition  of  a  boycott,"  he 
contends,  "very  often  proved  a  stroke  of  great  good  for- 
tune to  those  whom  it  was  intended  to  lead  into  paths  of  in- 
dustrial rectitude.  The  clamor  and  noise  formed  a  most 
valuable  advertisement  and  drew  upon  the  person  or  firm 
involved  the  general  attention  of  labor's  enemies;  who  to 
gratify  an  ill-concealed  spite  against  organized  labor  threw 
their  custom  to  offset  whatever  might  be  lost  through  the 
observance  of  the  boycott."*^*  With  this  idea  there  is  also 
linked  the  belief  that  it  is  more  desirable  and  less  costly  to 
concentrate  the  energies  of  the  union  upon  the  advertise- 
ment of  fair  firms,  because  the  publication  of  a  fair  list  or 
the  advertisement  of  goods  bearing  the  union  label  accom- 
plishes by  peaceful  means  that  which  a  boycott  accom- 
plishes only  at  the  expense  of  much  ill  feeling  and  hostility.^* 

Finally,  a  potent  argument  for  the  substitution  for  the 
boycott  of  a  system  for  the  advertisement  of  fair  articles 
has  been  the  legal  objections  that  have  been  raised  to  the 
direct  boycott.  Although  such  obstacles  had  been  continu- 
ally interposed  when  a  boycott  was  applied,  yet  they  con- 
stituted no  insurmountable  barrier  to  the  use  of  the  boycott 
until  the  decision  of  the  United  States  Supreme  court  in 
the  Danbury  Hatters'  case,  rendered  on  February  3,  1908.^* 
This  decision  practically  prohibited  the  publication  of  all 
unfair  lists,  and,  therefore,  again  turned  the  attention  of 
labor  to  the  availability  of  fair  lists  as  substitutes  for  unfair 
lists.  At  the  convention  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  in  1909  the  executive  council  urged  "each  affiliated 

•^2  Journal  of  United  Labor,  March  21,  1889,  p.  2807. 

8' Granite  Cutters'  Journal,  May,  1906,  p.  10. 

«*  American  Federationist,  March,  1908,  p.  192.  Report  of  Presi- 
dent, in  Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-eight  Annual  Convention  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  1908,  pp.  15,  80,  226. 


94  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

organization  to  more  thoroughly  advertise  the  names  of 
firms  which  employ  union  labor  and  conduct  their  establish- 
ments under  sanitary  conditions."*^^  In  that  same  year  the 
Union  Label  Trades  Department  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor,  comprising  thirty-seven  national  and  inter- 
national unions,  was  organized  "to  devise  means  for  the 
economic,  effective,  and  comprehensive  distribution  of  prod- 
ucts bearing  union  labels."''® 

With  the  Knights  of  Labor  the  plans  for  creating  markets 
for  the  friends  of  organized  labor  as  a  complementary  de- 
vice to  the  destruction  of  the  markets  of  their  enemies 
reached  a  high  stage  of  development.  By  the  publication  of 
fair  lists,  or  white  lists  of  fair  industry  '^"^  by  the  establish- 
ment of  consumers'  circles  \^^  by  the  adoption  of  many  labels, 
which  through  special  agreement  were  published  in  the 
journals  of  the  Farmers*  National  Alliance  and  Industrial 
Union  and  of  the  Citizens'  Alliance  and  in  other  agricultural 
and  industrial  papers ;''®  and  by  the  inauguration  of  many 
cooperative  schemes,  the  Knights  of  Labor  were  continu- 
ally making  vigorous  efforts  to  extend  the  markets  of  fair 
employers  and  to  make  it  profitable  for  such  employers  to 
become  identified  with  the  Order.  By  March,  1889,  the 
vague,  uncertain  attempts  of  previous  years  had  crystallized 
into  a  definite  policy,  with  a  new  term  coined  to  describe  its 
intent :  "  As  the  boycott  denoted  the  more  or  less  rigid  ex- 
clusion of  our  enemies  from  the  support,  we,  as  consumers, 
had  the  power  to  give,  so  .  .  .  the  term  anti-boycott  desig- 
nates directly  the  opposite  policy  of  confining  our  patronage 
exclusively  to  our  friends."** 

The  term  anti-boycott  can  of  course  be  used  to  describe 
any  system  of  fair  lists  through  which  is  intended  the  ad- 
vertisement of  the  products  of  fair  employers.  Disregard- 
ing their  cooperative  schemes,  which  at  times  assumed  great 

55  Proceedings,  p.  109. 
5«  Ibid.,  p.  90. 

57  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  July  24,  1890,  p.  4. 

58  Constitution,  1899,  Sec.  39. 

59  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  May  26,  1892,  p.  2. 
«o  Ibid.,  March  21,  1889,  p.  2807. 


BOYCOTT   ON    COMMODITIES  95 

complexity,  it  may  be  said  that  the  fair  lists  of  the  Knights 
of  Labor  bear  the  marks  of  possessing  greater  effectiveness 
than  is  the  case  with  the  majority  of  such  lists.  The  fair 
list,  as  it  usually  appears  in  a  trade-union  periodical,  has 
ordinarily  only  a  negative  effect.  Consisting,  as  it  does,  of 
an  enumeration,  frequently  too  long,  of  merchants  whose 
only  virtue  is  the  fact  that  they  have  not  openly  antagon- 
ized the  particular  labor  organization,  it  is  not  likely  to 
arouse  any  great  enthusiasm  in  the  subscribers  to  the  jour- 
nal. When,  however,  there  is  appended  to  the  notice  of  a 
boycott  a  list  of  fair  merchants  who  have  in  specific  cases 
refused  to  deal  with  the  boycotted  firm,  and  who  have  in 
fact  performed  the  double  service  of  employing  union  men, 
which  is  the  service  of  all  fair  employers,  and  of  refusing 
specifically  to  deal  with  the  non-union  firm,  the  moral  ef- 
fect of  such  a  notice  will  undoubtedly  be  much  greater  than 
that  of  the  ordinary  fair  list.  The  employers  included  in 
the  customary  exhaustive  fair  lists  are  regarded  as  merely 
passive  supporters  of  the  Order ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  fair 
employer  whose  name  is  included  in  these  special  fair  lists 
is  considered  as  active  a  supporter  of  the  organization  as  is 
any  member  who  openly  refuses  his  patronage  to  the  unfair 
firm.  Accordingly,  when  the  members  of  the  Order  were 
urged  to  buy  the  tobacco  of  the  Drummond  Tobacco  Com- 
pany, because  that  firm  had  agreed  not  to  handle  any  goods 
made  by  the  Enterprise  Foundry  the  manufacturer,  among 
other  things  of  tobacco  cutters;"  and  again,  when  in  the 
boycott  of  a  shoe  firm  a  list  of  thirty-four  local  merchants 
was  appended  who  had  refused  to  handle  the  goods  of  the 
boycotted  firm  until  the  differences  between  the  firm  and  its 
employees  had  been  satisfactorily  settled  ;«2  the  response 
from  the  members  of  the  organization  should  have  been  more 
general  than  that  following  the  insertion  in  the  journal  of  a 
list  of  merchants  who  were  fair  in  that  they  were  not  openly 

«i  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  June  6,  1889,  p.  2850;  July 
25,  1889,  p.  4. 

«•  Ibid.,  August  30,  1888,  p.  2690. 


96  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

fighting  the  Order  or  in  that  they  were  employing  its  mem- 
bers. 

The  extension  of  the  markets  of  union  firms,  or  of  firms 
that  are  friendly  with  labor  organizations,  has  also  had  a 
considerable  development  under  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor,  but  the  greatest  advance  has  been  made  in  the 
extensive  application  of  the  union  label.  At  the  convention 
held  in  1894  there  was  established  a  system  of  label  lec- 
turers "  to  advocate  the  exercise  by  labor  of  its  influence  in 
compelling  the  production  of  union-made  and  union-labelled 
goods."®^  Since  that  time  substantial  increases  have  been 
made  in  the  output  of  commodities  bearing  the  union  labeL 
With  a  view  to  augmenting  the  number  of  possible  pur- 
chasers of  fair  commodities,  efforts  have  been  made  from 
time  to  time  to  form  alHances  with  various  farmers*  or- 
ganizations, which  were  said  to  be  "especially  efficient  in 
the  sale  of  label  made  products."®*  It  is  hkely,  unless  re- 
cent judicial  opinions  and  statutes  are  so  modified  either  by 
future  judicial  dicta  or  by  amendatory  legislation  as  to  per- 
mit the  publication  of  the  names  of  unfair  firms  and  a  de- 
scription of  their  products,  that  the  eflforts  of  unions  will  be 
redoubled  in  urging  patrons  to  buy  from  fair  establish- 
ments; and  signs  of  great  activity,  in  this  direction  have 
already  been  evidenced  in  the  establishment  of  the  Union 
Label  Trades  Department  and  in  the  success  of  that  de- 
partment in  spite  of  the  few  years  of  its  existence.®^ 

Regarded,  however,  as  a  substitute  for  the  boycott,  the 
agitation  for  the  purchase  of  fair  goods  presents  several  ob- 
jections. In  the  first  place,  there  are  industries  or  sections 
of  industries  which  have  long  defied  the  labor  organizer ;  in 
such  cases  the  fair  or  union  establishments  are  either  non- 
existent or  are  so  few  in  number  and  have  such  limited  mar- 
's American  Federationist,  January,  1895,  p.  264. 
«*  Proceedings,  1909,  pp.  104,  230. 

*^  For  a  more  detailed  description  of  the  work  of  the  Union 
Label  Trades  Department  and  for  data  showing  the  numerical  in- 
crease in  the  use  of  the,  label,  see  Proceedings  of  the  Thirty-first 
Annual  Convention  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  191 1, 
pp.  27,  103;  American  Federationist,  December,  191 1,  pp.  976,  977; 
Proceedings  of  the  Thirty-second  Convention,  1912,  p.  24. 


BOYCOTT   ON    COMMODITIES  97 

kets  that  the  publication  of  a  fair  Hst  is  impossible  and,  if 
possible,  would  be  useless.  A  condition  of  this  kind  exists 
in  the  collar  industry.  Another  objection  is  the  purely 
mechanical  inferiority  of  a  fair  list  to  an  unfair  list.  Un- 
less the  union  which  publishes  the  list  is  willing  to  slight 
friendly  establishments,  the  fair  list  must  be  as  exhaustive 
as  possible,  and  in  that  form  it  assumes  such  unwieldy  pro- 
portions that  reference  to  it  becomes  an  unpleasant  burden. 
Finally,  considerable  difficulty  is  often  experienced  in  de- 
fining a  fair  firm.  When  at  the  convention  of  the  Amer- 
ican Federation  of  Labor  in  1904  it  was  resolved  that  the 
American  Federationist  should  not  publish  the  advertise- 
ments of  unfair  firms,  the  committee  held  that  "if  the  in- 
troducer of  the  resolution  contends  that  no  firm  should  be 
advertised  unless  they  handle  union  goods  exclusively,  it 
was  of  the  opinion  that  such  advertisements  are  not  to  be 
obtained. "^^  Furthermore,  when  there  was  discussed  be- 
fore a  convention  several  years  before  the  advisability  of 
publishing  a  fair  list  that  would  contain  only  the  names  of 
those  firms  whose  products  are  "handled  by  union  men 
throughout,"  a  delegate  strongly  opposed  a  list  so  consti- 
tuted on  the  ground  that  there  was  scarcely  a  "firm  that 
was  friendly  to  organized  labor  that  would  be  put  on  the 
fair  list,"  and,  in  addition,  Jhat  "  if  adopted  it  would  compel 
his  craft  to  take  every  firm  from  the  fair  list."®^  The.plan 
that  was  finally  adopted  provided  for  a  list  open  only  to 
those  firms  all  of  whose  employees  are  members  of  the  trade 
union  of  their  craft.®^  Disregarding  these  difficulties,  how- 
ever, one  would  still  have  great  hesitancy  in  denying  the 
superior  effectiveness  of  a  concerted,  vigorous  assault,  with 
its  ability  to  arouse  the  passions  and  active  enmity  of  thou- 

^^  Proceedings,  1904,  p.  174. 

67  Proceedings,   1898,  p.  13^. 

68  Proceedings,  iSqq,  p.  160.  A  census  of  establishments  in  the 
United  States  would  reveal  at  the  present  time,  first,  a  number  of 
firms  specifically  unfair  to  labor;  secondly,  a  larger ' number  of 
firms  designated  as  fair ;  and  finally  a  third  category,  probably  more 
inclusive  than  a  combination  of  the  other  two,  of  firms  which  are 
neither  entirely  fair  nor  unfair,  but  which  number  among  their 
customers  many  unionists. 

7 


98  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

sands  of  unionists  toward  a  few  firms  whose  names,  as  the 
result  of  a  country- wide  propaganda,  have  become  house- 
hold words,  over  a  long  drawn  out  series  of  recommenda- 
tions, embodied  in  a  fair  list,  that  is  too  often  rewarded  by 
the  apathy  and  indifference  of  the  workmen.**® 

As  was  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  chapter  the  type  of 
organization  predominant  in  a  country  at  any  time  may  con- 
ceivably exert  an  influence  on  the  use  of  the  boycott  on 
materials  in  various  industries.  By  a  similar  line  of  reason- 
ing the  attempt  has  been  made  to  demonstrate  the  superiority 
of  the  industrial  over  the  trade-union  form  of  organization 
in  the  application  of  the  boycott  on  commodities.  Thus  one 
writer  says :  "  In  the  use  of  the  boycott,  the  inter-trade  form 
of  labor  organization  enjoys  a  peculiar  advantage.  A  trade 
union  in  any  locality  may  cease  purchasing  an  article  with- 
out appreciably  reducing  its  sale,  since  the  proportion  of 
consumers  belonging  to  any  single  union  is  necessarily  small ; 
but  an  assembly  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  supported  by  a 
large  part  of  the  consumers  in  the  vicinity  wielded  an  in- 
fluence proportional  to  the  purchasing  power  of  all  mem- 
bers interested."^*  It  is  perhaps  true  that  the  boycott  on 
commodities  was  more  generally  enforced  under  the  Knights 
of  Labor  than  under  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 
But  to  attribute  this  difference  to  the  type  of  organization 
dominating  each  of  these  bodies  is  to  neglect  entirely  the 
influence  on  the  employment  of  the  boycott  of  the  personnel 
behind  the  two  organizations,  of  the  totally  different  spirit 
pervading  their  acts,  and  of  the  industrial  condition  of  the 
country  in  two  different  periods.  The  Knights  of  Labor 
were  emotional,  high-strung,  spectacular;  within  hardly 
more  than  a  half  decade  the  Order  attained  by  the  indis- 
criminate boycotting  of  its  enemies  a  hitherto  unheard  of 

®^  The  fair  list  gains  in  importance,  however,  when  it  is  noted 
that  the  boycott  is  a  temporary  expedient,  whereas  the  fair  Hst  is 
a  permanent  institution. 

■^0  W.  Kirk,  "  The  Knights  of  Labor  and  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor,"  in  Studies  in  American  Trade  Unionism,  edited  by 
Hollander  and  Barnett,  p.  368. 


BOYCOTT  ON   COMMODITIES  99 

position  of  industrial  and  political  power.  The  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  while  exhibiting  on  some  occasions 
similar  qualities,  is,  on  the  whole,  characterized  in  its  man- 
agement by  a  more  measured  calmness  and  a  greater  delib- 
eration. Beyond  this  no  great  virtue  can  be  ascribed  to  the 
one  or  the  other  type  of  organization  in  the  application  of 
the  boycott  on  commodities.  Indeed,  in  this  connection  the 
distinction  between  industrial  and  trade  unionism  is  more 
apparent  than  real.  If  under  industrial  unionism  all  indus- 
trial unionists  in  a  city  withdrew  their  patronage  from  an 
unfair  establishment,  then  under  trade  unionism  all  trade 
unionists  in  a  city,  joined  together  under  the  central  unify- 
ing authority  of  a  central  labor  union  or  of  a  city  federa- 
tion, enforced  the  boycott  with  equal  effectiveness. 


CHAPTER  V 
The  Mechanism  of  the  Boycott 

Legislation  adopted  by  American  trade  unions  for  the 
regulation  of  boycotts  has  been  neither  extensive  nor  com- 
plex. Although  there  has  been  since  1880  a  gradual  de- 
velopment of  a  few  general,  if  obvious,  principles  in  the 
theory  and  practice  of  the  boycott,  a  great  majority  of  the 
rules  in  force  at  one  time  or  another  have  been  dictated  by 
the  exigencies  of  the  moment  and  inspired  by  the  peculiar 
circumstances  surrounding  specific  instances  of  the  boycott. 
Unlike  the  union  regulations  affecting  the  strike  and  the 
closed  shop,  which  are  both  severe  and  enforceable,  the  con- 
trol of  the  boycott  has  been  weak  and  inadequate ;  nor  have 
the  purchasers  of  unfair  commodities  met  with  the  same 
drastic  treatment  that  is  ordinarily  inflicted  during  strikes 
upon  scabs  and,  in  trades  that  enforce  the  closed  shop,  upon 
non-union  laborers.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  frequently  stated  by 
unionists  that  the  purchase  of  boycotted  goods  is  as  repre- 
hensible as  is  the  performance  of  labor  in  an  establishment 
in  which  a  strike  is  in  progress.  Rarely,  however,  in  prac- 
tice does  the  same  odium  attach  to  the  one  act  as  to  the 
other. 

The  explanation  of  this  difference  is  not  difficult  to  find. 
It  depends  upon  the  fact  that  the  strike  deals  with  groups 
of  workmen  who  can  be  definitely  located  in  one  or  a  num- 
ber of  establishments ;  the  movements  of  every  individual, 
in  his  capacity  as  a  laborer  in  that  industry,  are  constantly 
under  the  scrutiny  of  his  fellow-workmen  and  of  the  union 
officials.  An  infraction  of  a  union  rule  amid  such  exposed 
surroundings  would  result  in  the  immediate  discovery  of 
the  delinquency  and  in  the  prompt  application  of  disciplin- 
ary measures.     In  his  capacity  as  consumer,  on  the  other 

100 


MECHANISM    OF   THE   BOYCOTT  lOI 

hand,  the  member  of  a  union  can  be  reached  only  with  great 
difficulty.  Only  in  small  towns  where  purchases  are  made 
in  one  or  two  stores  is  it  possible  to  adopt  the  same  stringent 
measures  with  regard  to  the  enforcement  of  the  boycott  as 
obtain  in  the  management  of  the  strike.  The  discovery  of 
violations  of  the  provisions  of  boycotts  in  a  large  city  would 
necessitate  the  constant  employment  of  a  force  of  pickets 
whose  size  would  soon  assume  unheard-of  proportions. 
The  recognition  of  these  difficulties  in  enforcing  the  boycott 
has  resulted  not  only  in  diminishing  the  number  of  legis- 
lative regulations  but  in  tempering  their  severity.  The 
boycott  notice  is  for  this  reason  persuasive  rather  than 
mandatory ;  it  is  couched  in  terms  of  appeal  rather  than  in 
terms  of  threat.  And,  finally,  it  seeks  to  earn  the  support 
of  workmen  by  the  employment  of  methods  designed  to  in- 
spire loyalty  and  to  enlist  sympathy  and  not  intended  to  in- 
vite fear. 

Few  unions  have  a  definite  boycotting  policy  which  speci- 
fies the  precise  conditions  under  which  the  boycott  will  be 
levied.  With  unions  like  the  carpenters,  which  impose  boy- 
cotts upon  materials  as  the  result  of  a  carefully  conceived 
plan  for  the  organization  of  mill  workers,  or  with  unions 
like  the  broom  makers,  which  boycott  the  products  of  prison 
labor,  the  boycott  is  a  weapon  that  is  constantly  in  use,  if 
not  throughout  the  entire  territorial  jurisdiction  of  the  union, 
at  least  in  certain  favorably  situated  localities.  Occasion- 
ally, however,  unions  will  discuss  the  adoption  of  a  general 
or  universal  system  of  boycotting  applicable  to  all  industrial 
disputes.  The  most  sweeping  of  such  systems  was  that 
contained  in  a  resolution  presented  to  the  convention  of  the 
Knights  of  Labor  in  1884,  providing  that  the  Order  "adopt 
a  general  system  of  boycotting  instead  of  strikes,"  and  fur- 
ther, that  "wherever  members  of  the  Order  were  forced 
out  of  employment "  a  general  boycott  notice  should  be  is- 
sued. The  resolution  was  rejected.^  More  recently  the 
Metal  Polishers  adopted  a  somewhat  less  general  rule  pro- 

1  Proceedings,  1884,  pp.  728,  761. 


102  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

viding  that  if  any  members  of  the  union  on  strike  were 
unable  to  win  after  sixty  days,  the  president  and  the  execu- 
tive board  of  the  union  would  be  required  to  declare  a  boy- 
cott against  the  firm  and,  also,  to  declare  the  shop  open.^ 
Such  action  is  exceptional,  since  most  unions  are  accus- 
tomed to  judge  each  case  on  its  merits  before  deciding 
whether  or  not  a  boycott  is  advisable. 

It  must  be  inferred  from  the  foregoing  statement,  not 
that  labor  organizations  are  not  guided  by  general  principles 
in  the  use  of  the  boycott,  but  merely  that  the  principle  is 
not  so  rigidly  formulated  as  in  the  rules  just  cited.  All 
unions,  for  example,  impose  boycotts  upon  the  products  of 
firms  when  a  strike  against  the  firms  has  had  an  unsuccess- 
ful issue ;  few  would  be  inclined  arbitrarily  to  predetermine 
the  Hmits  of  all  strikes  and  the  dates  of  inception  of  all  boy- 
cotts. Such  matters,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  instead  of 
being  subject  to  legislative  regulation,  become  questions  of 
administrative  practice. 

Under  the  present  form  of  labor  organization  a  boycott 
may  be  initiated  by  any  one  of  the  three  following  bodies : 
a  local  union,  a  national  union  or  a  federation  of  these  or- 
ganizations embodied  in  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 
In  actual  practice  the  levying  of  a  boycott  by  a  local  union 
is  followed  by  application  to  the  central  labor  union  of  that 
locality  for  endorsement  of  the  boycott.  Such  a  procedure 
is  made  necessary  by  the  fact  that  no  great  injury  can  be 
done  to  a  firm  by  the  unassisted  efforts  of  one  local  union, 
whereas  within  the  limits  of  a  single  city  the  membership 
of  a  central  labor  union,  composed  as  it  is  of  the  local 
unions  of  practically  all  trades,  might  constitute  a  consid- 
erable purchasing  power  whose  support  is  highly  desirable 
in  a  local  boycott.  Similarly,  when  the  sale  of  the  product 
of  a  firm  is  not  confined  to  a  single  city  or  state,  the  endorse- 

2  Proceedings,  in  The  Journal  [Metal  Polishers,  Buffers,  Platers, 
and  Brass  Workers],  April,  1901,  pp.  58,  70.  The  Granite  Cutters, 
also,  have  the  general  provision  that  "  any  firm  violating  an  agree- 
ment with  any  branch  of  our  International  Association  shall  be 
considered   a   non-union   firm"    (Constitution,   August,    1905,    sec. 

lOl). 


MECHANISM    OF  THE   BOYCOTT  IO3 

ment  of  the  national  union  may  be  requested ;  and  follow- 
ing that,  the  endorsement  by  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  assures  the  advertisement  of  the  boycott  among  the 
greatest  possible  number  of  organized  laborers.  A  some- 
what analogous  condition  was  present  under  the  Knights 
of  Labor,  where  the  possible  boycotting  units  consisted  of 
the  local  assemblies,  the  district  assemblies,  and  the  all-in- 
clusive general  assembly.  The  existence  of  these  agencies 
and  their  activity  in  imposing  boycotts  has  raised  two  prob- 
lems which  early  became  the  subject  for  remedial  legisla- 
tion under  both  the  Knights  of  Labor  and  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor.  One  problem  was  concerned  with 
what  might  be  called  the  incidence  of  the  boycott  and  the 
other  with  its  frequency. 

( I )  The  first  point  to  be  discussed  relates  to  the  incidence 
of  the  boycott  upon  workmen  in  localities  other  than  those 
in  which  it  was  originally  initiated.  It  was,  for  example, 
a  matter  of  frequent  occurrence  under  the  Knights  of 
Labor  for  a  local  assembly  to  boycott  a  firm  whose  business 
extended  over  the  jurisdiction  of  several  local  assemblies, 
and  to  make  efforts  through  advertisement  and  correspond- 
ence to  have  the  boycott  waged  in  other  localities,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  unfair  firm  and  the  other  local  assem- 
blies were  on  friendly  terms.  Such  a  boycott,  if  successful, 
throws  out  of  work  union  members  in  localities  where  the 
local  assembly  and  the  employer  are  at  peace.  To  avoid 
such  consequences,  the  rule  was  adopted  in  1885  providing 
that  "whenever  any  local  or  district  assembly  desires  .  .  . 
to  institute  any  boycott  which  affects  other  localities,  local, 
district,  or  state  assembly  the  facts  must  be  gathered  and 
presented  to  the  Executive  Board  which,  after  careful  ex- 
amination, shall  have  the  power  to  institute  a  general  boy- 
cott."^ The  difficulty  was  thus  solved  by  a  centralization  of 
authority  in  the  initiation  of  the  boycott.     Under  the  Amer- 

3  Proceedings,  1885,  p.  162.  The  committee  on  the  boycott  re- 
commended, also,  that  local,  district,  and  state  assemblies  should 
not  be  deprived  of  the  right  of  instituting  a  boycott  provided  it 
affected  no  other  localities. 


104  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

ican  Federation  of  Labor  similar  difficulties  have  been  en- 
countered ;  indeed,  a  number  of  national  unions  have  adopted 
constitutional  provisions  removing  from  local  unions  the 
right  of  imposing  a  boycott  without  the  consent  of  the  na- 
tional union.*  For  example,  in  1903  the  amendment  was 
suggested  to  the  constitution  of  the  Retail  Clerks'  Protec- 
tive Association  that  "  when  local  unions  place  firms  on  the 
unfair  list,  who  have  branch  stores  in  cities  other  than  that 
in  which  the  union  is  located,  before  applying  for  assistance 
from  sister  locals,"  the  boycott  must  be  endorsed  by  the  In- 
ternational Association.^  Similarly,  it  has  been  attempted 
on  several  occasions,  but  unsuccessfully,  to  enact  legislation 
preventing  the  central  labor  union  from  imposing  boycotts 
on  firms  "  which  manufactured  and  sold  goods  outside  of 
the  city  in  which  "  the  central  labor  body  was  situated,  or 
on  firms  doing  an  interstate  business,  unless  the  national 
union  whose  interests  were  involved  consented  to  the  boy- 
cott.« 

Secondly,  it  frequently  happens  that  a  boycott  results  in 
the  loss  of  employment  by  union  laborers,  who  have  no  dis- 
pute with  the  firm,  in  the  very  locality  in  which  the  boycott 
is  initiated.  This  is  ascribable  to  the  prevailing  system  of 
labor  organization.  The  trade-union  form  of  organization, 
which  permits  the  employment  in  the  same  shop  or  estab- 
lishment of  the  members  of  totally  distinct  labor  organiza- 
tions, exposes  the  members  of  the  unions  which  are  at  peace 
with  the  employer  to  all  the  consequences  of  a  successful 
boycott  imposed  by  the  union  which  is  at  war  with  him. 
Disputes  arising  from  the  initiation  of  such  boycotts  have 
been  numerous.  In  1901  the  Piano  and  Organ  Workers' 
International  Union  protested  against  the  boycott  imposed 

*  Constitution  of  the  United  Garment  Workers,  1898,  art.  xiii, 
sec.  12.  Constitution  of  the  Broom  Makers*  Union,  By-Laws 
Covering  Local  Unions,  art.  ix,  sec.  8,  in  the  Broom  Maker,  April, 
1903,  p.  136.  Proceedings  of  the  Eighth  Convention  of  the  In- 
ternational Brotherhood  of  Bookbinders,  in  the  International  Book- 
binder, June,  1902,  p.  90. 

5  Retail  Clerks'  International  Advocate,  June,  1903,  p.  29. 

®  Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-third  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1903,  p.  182.  See  also  Barnett, 
"  The  Dominance  of  the  National  Union,"  p.  472. 


MECHANISM    OF   THE   BOYCOTT  IO5 

by  the  Wood  Carvers'  Association  on  the  Vose  and  Son 
Piano  Company.  The  protest  declared  that  out  of  a  total  of 
between  two  and  three  hundred  employees  there  were  only 
six  or  ten  wood  carvers  who  had  a  grievance  against  the 
company  and  their  action  in  imposing  a  boycott  had  proved 
injurious  to  the  great  bulk  of  employees/  In  191 2  the 
Brotherhood  of  Painters  and  Decorators  through  the  Buf- 
falo central  body  boycotted  the  Brunswick-Balke-CoUender 
Company ;  this  boycott  was  protested  by  the  Carpenters  be- 
cause the  firm  employed  members  of  the  Carpenters' 
Union.®  The  Coopers  and  the  Brewery  Workmen  were  for 
a  long  time  in  the  throes  of  disputes  occasioned  by  the  boy- 
cott by  the  Coopers  of  breweries  which  employed  union 
brewery  workers  and  by  the  boycott  by  the  Brewery  Work- 
men of  breweries  which  employed  union  coopers.®  The 
possibility  of  such  disputes  is  again  suggested  when  a  man- 
ufacturer or  business  man  is  interested  in  two  concerns. 
Thus,  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners  urged  upon  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  the  boycott  of  the  news- 
papers of  W.  R.  Hearst,  because,  they  claimed,  he  was  the 
owner  of  the  unfair  Homestake  Mining  Company ;  the  boy- 
cott was,  however,  opposed  by  Delegate  Lynch  of  the  Typo- 
graphical Union  on  the  ground  that  Mr.  Hearst  "  employed 
members  of  the  five  international  Trades  in  the  printing  in- 
dustry in  all  of  his  eleven  newspapers."^** 

The  policy  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  in  such 
disputes  has  been  to  defer  endorsement  of  the  boycott  until 
the  unions  involuntarily  involved  in  it  have  been  consulted. ^^ 

^  Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-first  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1901,  p.  142. 

8  Proceedings  of  the  meeting  of  the  Executive  Council  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  reported  in  the  American  Federa- 
tionist,  July,  1912,  p.  568. 

9  Proceedings  of  the  Seventeenth  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1897,  p.  47. 

10  Proceedings  of  the  Thirty-first  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  191 1,  p.  199. 

11  The  attitude  which  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  should 
take  toward  boycotts  that  affect  union  workmen  has  been  the 
subject  for  much  discussion  at  conventions.  See,  for  example, 
Proceedings,  1897,  p.  61 ;  Proceedings,  1898,  pp.  34,  131 ;  Proceed- 
ings, 1901,  p.  91 ;  Proceedings,  1910,  p.  292. 


I06  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

The  International  Association  of  Machinists,  for  example, 
in  1900  applied  for  permission  to  place  the  Western  Elec- 
tric Company  of  Chicago  on  the  "  We  Don't  Patronize  "  list ; 
it  was  decided  that  final  action  on  the  case  would  be  post- 
poned until  Mr.  Gompers  could  communicate  with  the  Wood 
Workers  and  the  Metal  Polishers."  In  1904  the  Stove 
Mounters  complained  that  their  application  for  the  endorse- 
ment of  a  boycott  had  been  in  the  hands  of  the  executive 
council  for  six  months  and  no  action  had  been  taken;  to 
this  the  chairman  replied  that  the  council  would  consider 
the  matter  after  consulting  with  Mr.  Valentine  of  the  Iron 
Molders.^^  The  Stereotypers  were  actually  refused  the  en- 
dorsement of  a  boycott  against  two  Chicago  newspapers  be- 
cause of  the  protest  lodged  by  the  International  Typograph- 
ical Union.^*  As  Secretary  Morrison  has  stated  it  is  the 
policy  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  not  to  endorse 
any  boycott  where  union  labor  is  employed,  unless  the  na- 
tional union  whose  interests  are  concerned  agrees  to  the 
boycott." 

(2)  Labor  organizations  have  early  learned  the  wisdom 
of  training  the  combined  forces  of  their  organization  upon 
a  few  firms  instead  of  scattering  their  energies  in  the  prosc- 

12  Proceedings  of  the  Executive  Council  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor,  reported  in  the  American  Federationist,  August, 
1900,  p.  259. 

13  Stove  Mounters*  Journal,  January,  1904,  p.  5.  See  also  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Fourteenth  Convention  of  the  Stove  Mounters'  and 
Steel  Range  Workers'  International  Union,   1910,  p.  8. 

1*  Proceedings  of  the  Twentieth  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1900,  p.  65. 

15  Disputes  similar  to  those  described  above  have  also  arisen  in 
the  management  of  the  union  label.  See  Spedden,  chapter  vii,  on 
Trade  Jurisdiction  and  the  Label.  See  also  Stove  Mounters' 
Journal,  April,  1902,  p.  437;  June,  1904,  p.  175.  Complaints  have 
also  often  been  registered  against  the  acceptance  of  the  adver- 
tisements of  unfair  firms  by  the  journals  of  affiliated  unions.  At 
the  convention  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  in  1893, 
resolutions  were  adopted  condemning  the  publication  of  adver- 
tisements of  boycotted  firms  in  the  journals  or  souvenirs  of  affili- 
ated organizations  (Proceedings,  p.  5S).  Specific  charges  have  at 
times  been  made  against  labor  journals  for  accepting  such  adver- 
tisements; thus  the  Trainmen's  Journal  was  criticised  for  publish- 
ing advertisements  of  the  unfair  Tobacco  Trust  (Proceedings  of 
the  Twenty-Sixth  Annual  Convention  of  the  Massachusetts  State 
Federation  of  Labor,  191 1,  p.  72). 


MECHANISM    OF  THE  BOYCOTT  I07 

cution  of  numbers  of  boycotts.  Because  this  knowledge 
has,  however,  not  penetrated  to  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
labor  movement,  it  is  constantly  found  necessary  to  enact 
rules  designed  to  limit  the  number  of  boycotts.  Accord- 
ingly, at  the  convention  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  in  1885 
Mr.  Powderly  in  hi^  report  recommended  the  enactment 
of  legislation  for  the  regulation  of  this  matter.  "  Too  much 
indiscriminate  boycotting  has  been  indulged  in  throughout 
the  Order,"  he  stated,  "  and  as  a  consequence  that  weapon 
has  lost  a  great  deal  of  its  effectiveness."^®  This  state  of 
affairs  was  partially  remedied  by  placing  the  power  of  ini- 
tiating general  boycotts  in  the  hands  of  the  general  execu- 
tive board  of  the  Order.^^ 

Four  years  later,  at  a  convention  of  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor,  attention  was  also  called  to  this  danger  of 
promiscuous  and  ineffective  boycotting.  The  discussion 
centered  then  around  the  report  of  the  committee  on  labels 
and  boycotts  as  to  the  wisdom  of  placing  upon  the  unfair 
list  a  large  number  of  breweries.  In  the  subsequent  de- 
bate it  developed  that  the  general  sentiments  of  the  dele- 
gates favored,  instead  of  the  boycotting  of  a  score  or  more 
of  breweries  in  a  dozen  different  cities,  the  concentration 
on  a  few  of  the  leading  breweries  that  were  opposed  to  or- 
ganized labor.^®  There  was,  however,  no  sign  of  a  de- 
crease in  the  number  of  boycotts.  In  1894  the  executive 
council  appointed  a  committee  to  investigate  the  large  num- 
ber of  boycotts  that  had  been  referred  to  it  by  the  last  con- 
vention.^^ A  few  years  later  it  was  found  necessary  to  limit 
the  number  of  names  which  can  be  put  on  the  "We  Don't 
Patronize  "  list  at  any  one  time  to  three  firms  for  each  na- 
tional union,  one  for  each  central  body,  and  one  for  each 
local  union  directly  affiliated  with  the  American  Federation 

1*  Proceedings,  p.  19. 

17  At  the  convention  of  1886  the  general  executive  board  refused 
to  sanction  twenty-two  boycotts  which  it  was  asked  by  various 
local  assemblies  to  impose  and  make  general  (Proceedings,  pp.  106, 
137). 

18  Proceedings,   1889,  p.  40. 

19  Proceedings  of  the  meeting  of  the  Executive  Council,  reported 
in  the  American  Federationist,  March,  1894,  p.  19. 


< 


I08  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

of  Labor.2^  The  effect  of  even  this  legislation  was  not  en- 
couraging, for  the  unfair  list  continued  to  grow.^^ 

Several  indirect  methods  were,  however,  still  open  to  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  by  which  it  was  possible 
to  exercise  at  least  partial  control  over  the  frequency  of  the 
boycott.  There  was  first  the  general  rule  that  before  the 
name  of  a  firm  was  placed  on  the  unfair  list  an  effort  should 
be  made  by  the  executive  council  to  effect  an  amicable  settle- 
ment.^^ Thus  in  1900,  when  the  Stove  Mounters  made  ap- 
plication to  place  the  Belleville  Stove  Works  on  the  "We 
Don*t  Patronize  "  list,  it  was  moved  that  the  endorsement  be 
withheld,  while  in  the  meantime  President  Gompers  would 
endeavor  to  organize  the  stove  mounters  employed  at  that 
factory.28  The  American  Federation  of  Labor  will  refuse 
also  to  endorse  a  boycott  on  the  request  of  a  union  which 
itself  breaks  an  agreement  with  the  firm  which  it  now  seeks 
to  boycott.  This  was  illustrated  in  the  application  of  the 
Metal  Polishers  in  1902  for  the  endorsement  of  its  boycott 
on  the  National  Cash  Register  Company,  which  was  refused 
because  the  union  had  recently  made  an  agreement  with 
that  company  and  had  then  deliberately  broken  it.^* 

These  regulations  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor, 
it  will  be  observed,  tend  to  diminish  not  the  total  number 

20  Proceedings,  1901,  p.  233 ;  see  also  American  Federationist, 
October,  1903,  p.  1077. 

21  The  committee  on  the  boycott  again  in  1906  emphasized  the 
necessity  of  reducing  the  size  of  the  unfair  list;  it  then  recom- 
mended that  unions  which  had  firms  on  the  unfair  list  should 
report  every  three  months  to  the  executive  council  "what  efforts 
they  are  making  to  render  the  boycott  effective.  Failure  to  report 
for  six  months  shall  be  sufficient  cause"  for  the  removal  of  the 
boycotts  "not  reported  on  ...  "  (Proceedings,  1906,  p.  242).  A 
correspondent  to  the  Garment  Workers*  journal  wrote  that  "the 
*We  Don't  Patronize'  list  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
has  grown,  to  such  proportions  that  the  average  man  would  require 
a  thorough  course  in  mnemonics  in  order  to  remember  one-half  of 
the  firms  whose  names  appear  thereon"  (The  Weekly  Bulletin, 
January  12,  1906,  p.  3). 

22  American  Federationist,  October,  1903,  p.  1077. 

23  Proceedings  of  the  meeting  of  the  Executive  Council  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  reported  in  the  American  Federa- 
tionist, August,  1900,  p.  259. 

2*  The  Journal  [Metal  Polishers,  Buffers,  Platers,  Brass  Molders 
and  Brass  Workers],  September,  1902,  p.  42. 


MECHANISM    OF   THE   BOYCOTT  IO9 

of  boycotts  in  this  country,  but  merely  the  number  that  will 
appear  on  the  "  We  Don't  Patronize  "  list  of  that  organiza"- 
tion.  The  control  of  the  number  actually  initiated  and 
waged  must  be  left  to  the  national  and  local  unions  them- 
selves. The  experience  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  in  regulating  the  size  of  its  unfair  list  has  been  the 
experience  of  its  constituent  national  unions  in  restraining 
their  local  unions  from  imposing  too  great  a  number  of  boy- 
cotts upon  objectionable  employers.  The  Metal  Polishers, 
for  example,  decided  in  1905  to  limit  the  number  of  boy- 
cotts which  they  would  push  to  the  five  most  important 
ones.^^  It  was  found  impossible  to  carry  out  this  policy, 
first,  because  of  the  difficulty  of  determining  which  five 
were  the  most  important,  inasmuch  as  the  local  unions  whose 
boycotts  were  disregarded  maintained  that  theirs  were  more 
important  than  the  others ;  and  second,  because  those  local 
unions  whose  boycotts  were  being  pushed  showed  no  great 
alacrity  in  taking  the  names  of  their  firms  from  the  list  and 
thus  making  room  for  new  ones.  The  following  year,  there- 
fore, the  plan  was  adopted  of  granting  to  each  local  union 
one  place  on  the  hst,^^  Even  this  plan  was  not  entirely  sat- 
isfactory, for  in  1907  it  was  made  compulsory  for  the  local 
unions  who  have  their  boycotts  endorsed  by  the  international 
union  to  make  a  report  at  least  every  three  months  of  the 
efforts  being  made  to  make  the  declaration  of  unfairness 
effective. 2^  By  this  means  it  was  hoped  to  reduce  the  num- 
ber of  boycotts. 

How  effective  these  various  rules  have  been  it  is,  of 
course,  difficult  to  determine,  because  the  lack  of  adequate 
data  makes  it  impossible  to  study  the  quantitative  course  of 
the  boycott  in  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  extension  of  organization  and  the  reaHzation  of 
the  power  of  that  organization  would  tend  to  increase  the 
number  of  boycotts ;  on  the  other,  the  growing  conservatism 

25  The  Journal,  January,  1905,  p.  53. 

2«  Ibid.,  September,  1906,  p.  7.  The  firm  was  to  be  chosen  by  the 
local  union  itself. 

2T  ibi(j.,  October,  1907,  p.  6. 


no  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

of  labor  organizations,  the  frequent  admission  by  the  labor 
leaders  that  the  boycott  should  be  sparingly  used,  and  the 
conscious  efforts  made  to  keep  the  number  within  work- 
able bounds,  have  had  a  restraining  effect. 

After  all  efforts  at  peaceful  adjustment  have  failed  and 
the  boycott  has  been  inaugurated  and  endorsed  by  the  proper 
authorities,  the  first  step  in  the  actual  waging  of  the  boycott 
consists  in  the  proper  narration  to  the  purchasing  public  of 
the  causes  of  the  dispute.  Inasmuch  as  the  success  or  the 
failure  of  this  device  depends  upon  the  extent  to  which  it 
can  earn  the  sympathy  of  consumers,  the  importance  of  an 
effective  boycott  notice  cannot  be  overestimated.  Under  the 
Knights  of  Labor  the  authors  of  such  notices  attained  a 
high  degree  of  skill.  The  articles  in  the  Journal  of  the 
Knights  were  peculiarly  effective  in  their  ability  to  arouse 
class  antagonisms  and  to  interpret  every  disinclination  of 
an  employer  to  grant  the  demands  of  a  particular  union  as 
an  attack  upon  labor  as  a  whole.^®  The  same  tactics  were 
very  skilfully,  and  perhaps  justly,  employed  by  Mr.  Gom- 
pers  in  the  campaign  against  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range 
Company.  Here,  because  of  the  frequent  references  to  Mr. 
Van  Cleave's  hostility  to  the  labor  movement,  it  was  pos- 
sible to  organize  a  far  more  effective  boycott  than  if  atten- 
tion had  been  concentrated  merely  upon  the  grievances  of 
the  foundry  employees  against  the  Buck's  Stove  Company. 
All  accounts  of  the  grievances  of  a  union  which  lead  up  to 
the  imposition  of  a  boycott  are,  of  course,  not  written,  but  a 
great  many  are  communicated  orally  to  customers  of  the 
unfair  firm  by  boycott  committees  or  agents  who  visit  these 

28  An  example  of  an  effective  boycott  notice  is  the  account  pub- 
lished by  the  Metal  Polishers  of  their  grievances  against  the 
National  Cash  Register  Company.  The  narrative  goes  back  to  1890, 
when  the  present  superintendent  of  the  Cash  Register  Company, 
then  an  employee  of  the  Yale  and  Towne  Company,  had  been 
instrumental  in  stirring  up  labor  troubles.  A  description  follows 
of  the  activities  of  this  old  enemy  in  his  new  berth.  The  impres- 
sion left  upon  the  reader  is  that  the  welfare  of  the  labor  move- 
ment depends  in  great  part  upon  the  elimination  of  this  individual 
(The  Journal,  September,  1901,  p.  4). 


MECHANISM    OF   THE   BOYCOTT  III 

customers  in  an  effort  to  make  the  boycott  effective.  Here, 
too,  the  attempt  is  made  to  play  upon  the  customers'  sym- 
pathies. In  a  boycott  against  the  Royal  Mantel  Company, 
for  example,  one  such  committee  which  had  been  calling  on 
the  local  dealers  reported  that  "they  did  not  threaten  any 
of  them,  but  used  the  argument  that  the  horrors  of  slavery 
in  its  halcyon  days  were  not  worse  than  the  treatment  re- 
c  iived  by  the  employees  of  the  Royal  Company."^® 

Simultaneously  with  the  appearance  of  these  boycott  no- 
tices, the  names  of  the  boycotted  firms  appear  throughout 
the  country  in  the  various  unfair  or  "  We  Don't  Patronize  " 
lists  which  are  published  in  American  labor  journals.  When 
the  Order  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  was  at  the  height  of  its 
power,  the  number  of  names  upon  its  unfair  list,  published 
in  the  weekly  journal  of  the  Order,  rarely  exceeded  five 
or  six.  There  was,  however,  in  addition  to  this  unfair  list, 
the  Order's  Black  Book,  which  contained  the  names  of  those 
firms  boycotted  by  the  local  and  district  assemblies,  and 
which  was  to  serve  as  a  book  of  ready  reference  for  the 
members  of  the  Order .3<*  The  "  We  Don't  Patronize  "  list 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  was  before  1908  pub- 
lished monthly  in  the  American  Federationist  and  in  several 
of  the  journals  of  national  unions.  The  number  of  firms 
contained  in  that  list  has  varied  from  only  a  few  to  more 
than  one  hundred  and  twenty-five.  The  majority  of  the 
National  Unions  also  have  their  own  unfair  lists,  some  of 
which  are  printed  in  their  journals.  The  sizes  of  these 
lists  differ,  of  course,  in  different  unions  and  at  different 
times.  The  Coopers,  for  example,  had  at  one  time  about 
seventy  names  upon  their  unfair  list,^^  and  the  Metal  Pol- 
ishers at  another  time  had  thirty-three.^^  The  central  labor 
bodies  have  their  unfair  lists,  which  may  be  published  in 
the  paper  of  the  body,  if  it  has  one,  or  may  merely  be  posted 

2»The  International  Wood  Worker,  May,  1896,  p.  132. 
8<>  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  October  16,  1890,  p.  4. 
5*  Coopers'  International  Journal,  February,  1906,  p.  117. 
32  The  Journal,  September,  1906,  p.  7. 


112  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

upon  the  bulletin  board  where  they  can  be  read  by  all  the 
members  of  the  central  organization.^^ 

The  form  of  the  unfair  list  of  a  single  national  union  is 
simple.  It  usually  consists  of  the  title  "  Unfair  "  or  "  We 
Don't  Patronize,"  and,  below  the  title,  an  enumeration  of 
the  unfair  firms  and  their  locations.  In  the  unfair  list  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  which  is  composed  of 
the  firms  boycotted  by  unions  in  many  different  industries, 
the  firms  are  classified  by  the  character  of  their  products, 
as  for  example,  clothing  firms,  manufacturers  of  food  stuffs, 
and  so  on.  In  the  majority  of  unfair  lists  no  greater  promi- 
nence is  given  to  one  firm  than  to  another.  When,  however, 
a  union  is  entering  upon  a  very  important  boycott,  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  place  the  name  of  a  single  unfair  firm  or  of  a 
group  of  firms  in  a  more  conspicuous  position.  Thus,  in 
the  boycott  of  the  National  Cash  Register  Company  by  the 
Metal  Polishers  there  was  printed  in  large  green  letters  at 
the  top  of  the  cover  page  of  the  journal  of  the  union  the 
words,  "  National  Cash  Register  Boycotted  " ;  and  distrib- 
uted throughout  the  journal,  amid  various  articles,  was  scat- 
tered the  admonition  "Remember  the  National  Cash  Reg- 
ister is  Boycotted."" 

Following  the  court  decision  in  1908,  cited  in  an  earlier 
chapter,^^  it  was  found  necessary  to  discontinue  the  publi- 
cation of  the  unfair  lists.  The  Coopers  reported  that  they 
were  no  longer  sending  to  their  local  unions  the  quarterly 
pamphlet  containing  the  list  of  unfair  firms,  because  the 
pamphlet  was  submitted  to  the  legal  department  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  for  consideration  and  that 
department  advised  that  its  issue  would  constitute  a  viola- 
tion of  the  injunction  issued  by  Federal  Judge  Gould.^® 
This  did  not,  however,  mean  the  cessation  of  all  public  no- 
tices of  boycott,  for  in  February,  1910,  the  journal  of  the 
Metal  Polishers,  which  after  the  Buck's  Stove  Company  in- 

33  American  Federationist,  January,  1902,  p.  35. 

34  The  Journal,  October,  1901. 

35  Chapter  i. 

*«  Coopers*  International  Journal,  May,  1908,  p.  296. 


MECHANISM    OF  THE  BOYCOTT  -^  II3 

junction  had  stopped  printing  the  unfair  list,  substituted  a 
list  of  firms  under  the  following  caption :  "  Where  our  mem- 
bers have  been  or  are  now  on  strike  and  no  adjustments 
have  been  made."  The  list  contained  the  names  of  eight 
firms,  one  of  which  was  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Com- 
pany. Furthermore,  in  191 2  the  executive  board  of  that 
same  union  agreed  unanimously  to  place  a  certain  firm  on 
the  unfair  list  despite  the  fact  that  the  union  professed  to 
have  no  such  list.^^  Some  unions  have  definitely  replaced 
the  unfair  list  with  other  devices.  The  Baltimore  local 
branch  of  the  International  Typographical  Union,  for  ex- 
ample, when  it  had  a  difficulty  with  the  Peters  Publishing 
Company,  did  not  place  the  firm  upon  an  unfair  list  but  sent 
to  many  of  the  firms  in  the  city  a  booklet  containing  an 
account  of  their  grievances  and  the  correspondence  between 
the  union  and  the  Peters  Company,  and,  in  addition,  a 
pamphlet  which  described  the  benefits  and  advantages  of 
membership  in  the  Typographical  Union  and  the  aims  and 
objects  of  the  union.  No  request  was  made  that  the  re- 
cipients of  these  letters  should  withdraw  their  patronage 
from  the  Peters  Company,  but  the  booklet  closed  with  the 
challenge  that  "  the  Typographical  Union  is  conscious  of  its 
rights,  its  character,  and  its  responsibility,  and  it  will  de- 
fend them  at  any  cost." 

The  unfair  list  is  the  general  notice  of  the  boycott;  it 
must  be  followed  by  activities  designed  to  concentrate  the 
boycott  in  certain  localities  where  the  commodities  in  ques- 
tion are  sold  and  by  those  designed  to  enlist  the  support  of 
the  customers  of  the  unfair  firm.  The  agencies  which  exist 
for  the  exercise  of  these  functions  are  the  district  organ- 
izers of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  the  special  agents 
of  national  unions,  the  boycott  committees  of  the  central 
labor  bodies,  and  the  boycott  committees  of  the  local  unions. 
There  were  at  the  last  report  1760  district  organizers  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor;  although  they  report 
from  time  to  time  that  they  are  pushing  certain  boycotts, 

•'  The  Journal,  April,  1912,  p.  25. 
8 


]fl4  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

^ese  organizers  are  of  no  great  importance  as  boycotting 
agencies,  since  their  activities  in  furthering  boycotts  are 
merely  subsidiary  to  their  principal  activities  as  organ- 
izers.^® 

The  special  agent  appointed  by  the  national  union  is  a 
functionary  of  considerably  greater  importance.  In  those 
cases  where  the  boycotted  firm  is  a  large  wholesale  house 
which  sells  the  bulk  of  its  product  to  large  retail  dealers, 
it  is  the  duty  of  these  national  agents  to  visit  the  various 
retail  houses  and  to  persuade  their  proprietors  either  to 
withdraw  their  patronage  from  the  boycotted  firm  or  to  use 
their  influence  in  persuading  that  firm  to  yield  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  union.  They  have  been  appointed  frequently 
in  such  unions  as  the  Garment  Workers  and  the  Hatters. 
It  was,  for  example,  reported  in  1902  that  an  agent  ap- 
pointed by  the  United  Hatters*  Union  was  in  Buffalo,  where 
he  was  visiting  the  retail  hat  stores  and  department  stores 
in  the  endeavor  to  persuade  them  to  stop  buying  Roelofs* 
hats.^®  In  that  same  boycott  four  agents  were  stationed 
in  Tennessee,  CaHfornia,  Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota  for 
the  purpose  of  bringing  pressure  to  bear  upon  customers 
of  the  Roelofs'  Company  located  in  those  States.**^ 

These  national  agents  can,  however,  at  most  stay  in  a 
town  only  a  short  while.  Their  duty  consists  rather  in 
travelling  from  place  to  place  and  in  organizing  the  boycott 
than  in  remaining  at  one  place  and  managing  all  of  its  de- 
tails. The  hand  to  hand  distribution  of  propagandist  litera- 
ls Reports  of  these  organizers  are  published  in  the  American 
Federationist ;  see,  for  example,  August,  1896,  p.  130;  March,  1898, 
p.  7;  September,  1901,  p.  382. 
8^  Journal  of  the  United  Hatters,  March,  1902,  p.  12. 
*oibid.,  February,  1902,  p.  3.  In  a  boycott  instituted  in  1898  by 
the  United  Garment  Workers,  in  conjunction  with  the  two  local 
unions  in  whose  jurisdiction  the  boycotted  firm  was  situated,  "  sent 
an  agent  on  the  road  to  act  against  the  unfair  houses"  (Proceed- 
ings of  the  Sixth  Convention,  in  the  Garment  Worker,  January, 
1898,  p.  5).  In  the  following  year  the  general  secretary  of  the 
union  recommended  that  a  competent  lecturer  be  kept  upon  the 
road  "  for  the  purpose  of  creating  a  greater  interest  in  the  label 
and  of  prosecuting  all  pending  boycotts"  (The  Garment  Worker, 
August,  1899,  p.  8).  See  also  Proceedings  of  the  Eleventh  Regu- 
lar Session  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  1887, 
p.  1282. 


MECHANISM   OF  THE  BOYCOTT  II5 

ture,  the  interviewing  of  many  small  local  dealers,  and  the 
adoption  of  numerous  schemes  of  advertisement  to  center 
attention  upon  the  boycotted  firm  or  commodity  must  be. 
entrusted  to  other  persons.  The  exercise  of  these  extremely 
important  functions  lies  in  the  hands  of  committees  from 
the  local  unions'*^  and  from  the  central  labor  bodies.  Of 
the  two,  the  committee  of  the  central  labor  body  is  by  far 
the  more  effective.  A  compact  body  composed  of  practi- 
cally all  of  the  organized  laborers  of  the  city,  skilled  and  un- 
skilled, the  central  labor  body  represents  the  only  unit  of 
consumers  that  can  effectively  carry  on  in  a  colpmunity  a 
boycott  on  unfair  articles.  Obviously,  the  arguments  of  a 
committee  of  the  Baltimore  Federation  of  Labor,  repre- 
senting thousands  of  organized  carpenters,  sheet  metal 
workers,  printers,  bookbinders,  garment  workers  and  others, 
would  carry  much  more  weight  with  a  local  merchant  than 
would  those  of  a  committee  representing  the  800  to  1000 
members  of  the  local  bricklayers  union,  or  even  the  com- 
mittee representing  the  United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters 
and  Joiners,  an  organization  extending  all  over  the  country 
with  a  membership  of  over  200,000.  With  regard,  then,  to 
the  actual  marshalling  of  the  forces  of  organized  labor  in 
each  community  and  to  the  impressing  upon  the  agents  of 
the  unfair  commodities  in  those  places  the  strength  of  or- 
ganized labor  as  a  body  of  consumers,  the  boycott  commit- 
tee of  the  central  labor  organization  is  the  most  effective  of 
the  four  agencies, — so  effective,  indeed,  that  one  student  of 
the  history  and  functions  of  central  labor  unions  has  be.en 
led  to  assert  that  "  without  the  Central  Labor  Union  an  ef- 
fective boycott  could  not  be  carried  on  in  the  city."*^ 

*iThe  committee  on  the  boycott  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  re- 
ported in  1885  that  "each  state,  district,  and  local  assembly  at- 
tached to  the  general  assembly  be  required  to  appoint  a  boycotting 
committee,"  which  should  "prepare  all  documents,  collect  evidence, 
and  take  charge  of  all  matters  pertaining  to  boycotting  in  their 
respective  localities"  (Proceedings,  1885,  p.  162).  See  also  Journal 
of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  June  2,  1892,  p.  4;  Journal  of  the  United 
Hatters,  August,  1898,  p.  3. 

*2W.  M.  Burke,  "History  and  Functions  of  Central  Labor 
Unions,"  in  Columbia  Studies  in  History,  Economics  and  Public 
Law,  vol.  xii,  no.  i,  p.  83. 


Il6  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

A  prerequisite  to  the  successful  prosecution  of  a  boycott 
by  the  various  boycotting  agencies  is  a  knowledge  of  the 
destination  and  places  of  sale  of  the  boycotted  commodi- 
ties and  the  ability  to  identify  those  articles.  Labor  or- 
ganizations have  always  exhibited  great  activity  in  collect- 
ing and  distributing  such  information.  For  example,  when 
the  Knights  of  Labor  boycotted  in  1888  the  Higgins  Carpet 
Company,  the  journal  of  the  Order  contained  every  week 
lists  of  shipments  that  had  been  made  by  that  firm  within 
specified  dates.*^  In  a  boycott  against  a  New  York  shoe 
company  it  was  stated  that  the  central  office  had  a  list  of 
the  retail  dealers  throughout  the  states  of  New  York,  Penn- 
sylvania, Iowa,  Ohio,  Illinois,  Kansas,  and  Michigan  to 
whom  the  goods  of  this  firm  were  being  shipped.**  In  the 
boycott  against  the  Anheuser-Busch  and  W.  J.  Lemp  Com- 
panies the  local  and  district  assemblies  were  requested  to 
make  lists  of  saloon-keepers  and  others  who  sold  the  beer 
of  these  unfair  breweries  and  to  forward  these  lists  for  the 
use  of  the  central  office.*^ 

The  methods  used  in  the  actual  tracing  of  the  goods  are 
various,  but  in  the  main  consist  in  following  shipments  or 
consignments  to  stations  or  piers  and  there  attempting  to 
discover  their  destinations.  In  a  boycott  in  1908  by  the 
local  carpenters*  union  of  Dubuque,  Iowa,  the  boycotted 
firm  requested  an  injunction  to  restrain  members  of  the 
union  from  "  following  their  wagons  to  depots  and  jobs  to 
see  where  they  were  sending  material."*®  In  a  boycott  by 
the  Granite  Cutters'  Union  the  union  reported  that  the 
"firm  was  afraid  to  ship  the  stone  in  open  cars,  but  put  it 
in  box  cars  to  keep  the  members  of  the  union  from  know- 

*3  The  lists  appeared  in  the  following  form :  "  6  large  loads  to 
Arthur  and  Steeman,  Penna.  R.  R.,  3  P.  M.  foot  of  Liberty  St., 
New  York  to  Philadelphia.,  Pa.  .  .  .  The  truck  of  H.  B.  Claflin 
&  Co.  was  hauling  carpets  from  Dunham,  Buckley  &  Co.  (sent  to 
D.  B.  &  Co.,  from  Higgins)  to  Star  Union  line,  marked  '  B.  &  B.' 
Columbus,  Ohio"  (Journal  of  United  Labor,  February  11,  1888, 
p.  2573;  February  25,  1888,  p.  2583). 

**  Ibid.,  April  28,  1888,  p.  2618. 

^'^  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  September  3,  1891,  p.  4. 

*«  Proceedings  of  the  Fifteenth  Biennial  Convention  of  the  United 
Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners,  1908,  p.  45. 


MECHANISM    OF  THE   BOYCOTT  II7 

ing  what  was  being  shipped."*^  In  the  boycott  in  1891 
against  Rochester  clothing  manufacturers  the  BaUimore 
Clothing  Cutters'  assemblies  announced  that  "their  pickets 
had  succeeded  in  tracing  several  carloads  of  boycotted 
Rochester  clothing  and  that  steps  were  taken  to  let  the 
workmen  of  Baltimore  know  in  what  stores  the  boycotted 
goods  were  on  sale."*^ 

A  union  may  frequently  be  unable  to  trace  boycotted 
goods  to  their  destination  or  even  to  distinguish  fair  from 
unfair  goods.  One  of  the  great  difficulties  experienced  by 
the  stone  cutters  in  enforcing  their  boycott  on  unfair  stone 
was  due  to  their  inability  to  determine  the  destination,  in 
some  cases,  and  the  source,  in  others,  of  the  stone.  A  union 
attempting  to  enforce  a  forward  boycott  would  very  often 
be  cutting  on  three  or  four  jobs  at  the  same  time,  and  would^ 
consequently,  be  at  loss  to  know  which  of  the  stone  was  to 
be  shipped  to  the  unfair  job.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
boycott  were  a  backward  boycott,  the  difficulty  would  con- 
sist in  discovering  the  source  of  the  stone.*®  The  desire 
on  the  part  of  manufacturers  to  evade  the  consequences  of 
boycotts  has  led  to  the  adoption  of  a  number  of  devices  for 
concealing  the  identity  of  the  goods.  An  obvious  device  is 
the  changing  of  the  name  of  the  firm  and  the  trade-mark 
on  the  boycotted  commodity.  For  instance,  when  the  Brick- 
layers placed  the  P.  B.  Broughton  Brick  Company  on  its 
unfair  list,  that  firm  proceeded  to  ship  bricks  under  the 
name  of  the  "  New  York  Hydraulic  Brick  Company."^^  In- 
deed, an  instance  is  cited  of  a  boycotted  corporation  ap- 
pealing to  the  state  legislature  that  it  be  permitted  to  change 
its  name."^     The  Kimball  Piano  Company  of  Chicago,  after 

*7  Granite  Cutters*  Journal,  November,  1901,  p.  8. 

*8  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  December  17,  1891,  p.  4. 

*9  Stone  Cutters'  Journal,  August,  1900,  p.  4.  An  organizer  of 
the  Granite  Cutters'  Union  who  was  stationed  at  Barre,  Vermont, 
watched  the  stone  as  it  left  the  quarries  and  was  thus  able  to  en- 
force a  forward  boycott  by  preventing  its  sale  to  non-union  firms 
(Granite  Cutters*  Journal,  September,  1902,  p.  6). 

8*^  The  Bricklayer  and  Mason,  September,  1906,  p.  119. 

61  Proceedings  of  the  Twelfth  Regular  Session  of  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  1888,  p.  95. 


Il8  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

the  imposition  of  a  boycott,  it  is  said,  ceased  to  stamp  its 
pianos  as  before,  and  sold  them  under  seven  different 
names.'^^ 

Another  device,  which  is  far  more  subtle  and  in  many 
cases  more  successful,  consists  in  mixing  fair  and  unfair 
goods,  either  with  the  connivance  of  a  fair  dealer  or  by  the 
introduction  of  an  intermediate  purchaser  between  the  man- 
ufacturer and  the  retailer.  The  first  situation  is  well  illus- 
trated in  the  fur  and  felt  hat  industry.  It  was  stated  in 
1899  that  the  "practice  had  for  some  time  prevailed  for 
certain  firms,  which  ran  union  factories  and  made  stiff  hats 
exclusively,  to  buy  soft  hats  from  non-union  concerns  and 
to  sell  them  side-by-side  with  the  products  of  their  own 
firms."^^  The  Garment  Workers  in  1910  deplored  the  fact 
that  a  fair  overall  manufacturing  company  purchased  ready- 
made  non-union  suspenders,  attached  them  to  the  article 
bearing  the  union  label  and  sold  the  completed  commodity 
under  the  protection  of  the  union  label.*^*  The  possibility 
of  the  sale  of  boycotted  commodities  is  again  seen  in  the 
experience  of  the  same  unions  with  jobbing  houses,  which 
act  as  intermediaries  between  wholesale  and  retail  firms. 
In  1900  the  Hatters  complained  that  a  market  for  non- 
union hats  was  obtained  through  jobbers  who  sell  the  prod- 
ucts of  both  non-union  and  union  firms  under  the  protec- 
tion of  the  latter. '^^^  A  similar  complaint  was  registered  by 
the  Garment  Workers  in  igo6.^^  The  employment  of  an 
analogous  mode  of  concealment  is  made  possible  in  the 
building  industry  through  the  introduction  of  the  building 
supplies'  companies.     One  of  the  salesmen  of  the  Morgan 

«2The  Carpenter,  November,  1907,  p.  29. 

63  Journal  of  the  United  Hatters,  April,  1899,  p.  6. 

5*  Proceedings,  1910,  p.  116. 

55  Journal  of  the  United  Hatters,  May,  1900,  p.  i.  President 
Tobin  of  the  Boot  and  Shoe  Workers'  Union  objected  to  placing 
a  boycott  upon  a  shoe  manufacturing  firm  "because  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  reach"  a  firm  "that  makes  shoes  for  the  jobbing 
trade"  (Lord,  p.  25).  ^    ^ 

56  "There  are  a  number  of  overall  manufacturers,  users  of  the 
union  label,  who  buy  these  non-union  garments  and  sell  them  in 
conjunction  with  the  garments  bearing  the  label  of  the  United 
Garment  Workers  of  America"  (Proceedings,  1906,  p.  143)- 


MECHANISM    OF   THE   BOYCOTT  II9 

Company,  whose  trim  had  been  boycotted  by  the  United 
Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners,  testified  that  the 
only  way  in  which  his  company  could  dispose  of  its  product 
on  the  Island  of  Manhattan  was  by  concealing  the  origin  of 
the  goods,  "by  indirect  methods  such  as  the  sale  and  dis- 
position of  these  through  dealers  and  other  third  parties, 
who  could  in  turn  dispose  of  such  merchandise  to  building 
contractors  for  use  in  the  erection  of  buildings  without  the 
United  Brotherhood  being  able  to  detect  what  company 
manufactured  the  goods."^'' 

The  possibilities  for  such  evasions  are,  of  course,  greatly 
lessened  in  the  case  of  simple  articles  where  practically  all 
of  the  fair  goods  are  marked  by  a  union  label.  It  would, 
for  instance,  be  useless  for  a  baker  in  certain  union  com- 
munities to  attempt  to  conceal  the  place  of  manufacture 
of  his  bread  by  any  subterfuge  whatever,  because  the  con- 
sumers could  always  demand  and  purchase  bread  that  bore 
the  union  label.  With  a  composite  article,  however,  which 
should  bear  several  labels,  the  opportunities  for  evading  the 
boycott  are,  as  seen  before,  very  much  greater. 

The  foregoing  discussion  has  been  limited  to  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  methods  of  initiation  of  boycotts,  of  the  various 
boycotting  agencies,  and  of  the  means  employed  in  tracing 
and  identifying  boycotted  commodities.  The  next  subject 
naturally  deals  with  the  methods  employed  in  announcing 
directly  to  individual  purchasers  the  location  of  the  boy- 
cotted commodity  or  establishment.  These  methods  vary 
from  the  distribution  of  circulars  to  public  parades  and 
processions.  When,  for  example,  the  carpenters  of  Balti- 
more boycotted  several  department  stores  of  that  city,  the 
members  of  the  union  and  their  friends  distributed,  in  house 
doors  and  in  the  market  baskets  of  women,  circulars  stat- 
ing their  grievances,  announcing  the  boycott,  and  requesting 
the  support  of  the  public.     The  same  thing  was  done  by 

'^J  Paine  Lumber  Co.  vs.  United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and 
Joiners,  Subpoena,  Notice  of  Motion  for  Preliminary  Injunction, 
Bill  of  Complaint,  and  Affidavits,  p.  190. 


120  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

the  Garment  Workers  in  New  York  in  1905,  when  they 
circulated  posters  bearing  the  following  inscription :  "  Marks 
Arnheim,  9th  Street  and  Broadway,  locked  out  his  men  for 
belonging  to  a  labor  organization.  Don't  patronize  him."^* 
The  Metal  Polishers  posted  stickers  bearing  the  notice  of 
the  boycott  over  the  doors  of  the  boycotted  firm  and  on  other 
places  in  the  street.*'®/ One  of  the  agents  of  the  United  Hat- 
ters, in  his  prosecution  of  the  boycott  against  the  Roelof 
Company,  made  it  a  point  to  bill  a  town  with  placards  an- 
nouncing the  boycott  before  he  visited  the  merchants  of  the 
town;  this  he  did  on  the  theory  that  this  preliminary  ad- 
vertisement of  the  boycott  would  make  the  merchants  more 
responsive  to  his  arguments  when  he  should  subsequently 
visit  them.®°  Finally,  in  the  boycott  on  a  San  Francisco 
restaurant  a  man  bearing  upon  his  shoulders  signs  adver- 
tising the  boycott,  was  engaged  to  walk  slowly  up  and  down 
in  front  of  the  restaurant. 

The  effectiveness  of  the  boycott,  however,  must  depend 
in  great  measure  upon  the  ability  of  a  labor  organization  to 
force  the  observance  of  the  boycott  upon  its  members.  Yet, 
as  was  indicated  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  such  en- 
forcement is,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  device,  difficult. 
In  such  a  boycott  as  the  carpenters'  boycott  on  trim,  where 
those  engaged  in  prosecuting  it  are  assembled  within  a 
building,  it  is  easy  to  detect  and  punish  an  infraction.  In 
the  majority  of  instances  the  reverse  is  true.  This  fact 
has  not,  however,  prevented  unions  from  adopting  rules 
which  seek  to  insure  the  personal  enforcement  of  the  boy- 
cott. At  the  convention  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  in  1883 
the  general  executive  board  announced  that  "during  the 
period  of  boycotting  regularly  undertaken  by  a  local  as- 
sembly or  district  assembly,  such  local  or  district  assembly 
may  fix  and  enforce  such  penalty  as  they  may  deem  just 


68  Weekly  Bulletin  [Garment  Workers],  March  10,  1905,  p.  i. 

6»  The  Journal,  December,  1901,  p.  23. 

60  Journal  of  the  United  Hatters,  August,  1902,  p.  4. 


MECHANISM    OF   THE   BOYCOTT  121 

for  non-compliance  with  the  boycotting  order."®^  At  the 
convention  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  in  1889 
the  committee  on  boycotts  and  labels  recommended  that 
"affiliated  unions  adopt  some  plan  whereby  members  who 
persist  in  purchasing  the  products  of  non-union  labor  can 
be  properly  disciplined."®^  The  Typographical  Union,  too, 
in  its  constitution  of  1889  provided  that  subordinate  unions 
should  "  pass  by-laws,  enforcing  with  fines,  suspensions,  or 
expulsions,  the  willful  violation  of  boycotts  adopted  either 
by  them  or  by  the  International  Typographical  Union."®* 
Local  unions  of  printers  may  discipline  their  members  even 
for  the  violation  of  the  boycotts  of  other  trades  which  they 
have  endorsed.®* 

Many  local  unions  throughout  the  United  States  have  at 
one  time  or  another  adopted  systems  of  fines  to  be  imposed 
upon  members  convicted  of  purchasing  boycotted  goods. 
The  rules  have  been  in  the  main  temporary,  applying  only 
to  individual  boycotts ;  and  the  fines  have  ranged  from  fifty 
cents  to  ten  dollars.  In  the  boycott  against  the  Los  Angeles 
Times  practically  every  union  in  San  Francisco  levied  a  fine 
of  five  or  ten  dollars  on  members  who  patronized  the  Owl 
Drug  Company,  one  of  the  advertisers  in  the  paper.®' 
When,  however,  a  boycott  is  being  constantly  waged,  a 
union  may  have  permanent  provisions.  Thus,  the  by-laws 
for  the  District  of  New  York  of  the  United  Brotherhood  of 
Carpenters  and  Joiners  contain  the  provision  that  any  mem- 
ber found  guilty  of  installing  unfair  trim  shall  be  fined  ten 
dollars  for  each  offense.®®     Even  when  there  is  no  such 

61  Proceedings,  1883,  p.  454.  At  the  convention  in  1885  the  com- 
mittee on  boycotts  recommended  also  that  the  executive  board  be 
empowered  to  compel  "  every  local  and  all  of  its  members  .  .  . 
to  adhere  strictly  to  each  boycott  .  .  .  under  penalty  of  forfeiture 
of  their  charter  or  expulsion  from  the  Order"  (Proceedings,  1885, 
p.  162;  see  also  Proceedings,  1886,  p.  219). 

«2  Proceedings,  1889,  p.  42. 

«3  Typographical  Journal,  July  15,  1889,  p.  4. 

**  Barnett,  The  Printers,  p.  270  note. 

««  Retail  Clerks'  International  Advocate,  June,  1903,  p.  19. 

«8The  Carpenter,  June,  1910,  p.  31. 


122  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

constant  boycott,  a  union  may  adopt  permanent  provisions 
to  insure  the  purchase  of  fair  goods.  This  is  illustrated  in 
the  adoption  by  the  Bethel  local  union  of  the  Hatters  of  a 
standing  rule  that  imposed  a  fine  of  two  dollars  on  any 
member  who  patronized  a  non-union  barber  shop  or  who 
purchased  an  article  without  the  union  label,  when  it  was 
possible  to  obtain  such  article  with  the  label.^^  The  disci- 
plining of  the  members  is  not  always  effected  through  the 
medium  of  a  fine.  In  Fresno,  California,  it  was  decided 
to  punish  the  culprits  by  turning  the  light  of  publicity  upon 
their  acts.  The  Fresno  Labor  News,  accordingly,  published 
the  names  of  those  trade  unionists,  who  were  "  caught  in 
the  act  of  purchasing  non-union  made  goods."®^ 

The  practical  objection  to  such  rules  lies,  of  course,  in 
the  difficulty  of  enforcing  them;  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
discover  who  buys  fair  and  who  buys  unfair  goods.  And 
little  effort  has  been  expended  by  the  majority  of  unions 
in  framing  legislation  to  meet  that  difficulty.  The  Garment 
Workers,  however,  have  adopted  a  most  elaborate  plan  by 
which  they  may  detect  and  presumably  reprimand  those 
members  who  buy  goods  which  do  not  bear  the  union  label. 
The  constitution  of  the  union  provides  that,  after  the  read- 
ing of  the  minutes  at  the  meeting  of  each  of  its  local 
branches,  the  secretary  shall  at  the  first  meeting  request  all 
members  whose  clothing  bears  the  union  label  and  who  in- 
sist that  union  clerks  wait  on  them  to  rise.  At  the  second 
meeting  those  members  who  purchase  only  union-made 
cigars,  tobacco,  and  so  on,  are  told  to  rise.  This  perform- 
ance is  repeated  with  different  commodities  until  the  sixth 
night,  when  the  same  request  is  addressed  to  those  who  buy 
union-mined  coal.     At  the  next  meeting  the  secretary  begins 

«T  Journal  of  the  United  Hatters,  August,  1898,  p.  i.  Many  in- 
stances of  the  imposition  of  fines  on  members  for  failing  to  ob- 
serve specific  boycotts  can  be  found  in  the  journals  of  labor  unions. 
See,  for  example,  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  April  23,  1891, 
p.  3;  Coopers*  International  Journal,  April,  1903,  p.  159;  The  In- 
ternational Bookbinder,  December,  1902,  p.  215;  American  Federa- 
tionist,  January,  1902,  p.  43. 

•8  The  International  Bookbinder,  January,  1912,  p.  31. 


MECHANISM    OF  THE  BOYCOTT  1 23 

again  with  the  first  question,  and  the  process  is  thus  con- 
stantly repeated.®^ 

The  boycott  is  under  ordinary  conditions  an  inexpensive 
weapon;  unlike  the  strike,  it  does  not  postulate  the  unem- 
ployment of  a  large  number  of  workingmen,  many  of  whom 
must  be  paid  strike  benefits.  As  soon  as  a  boycott  is  de- 
clared, those  who  are  out  of  work  because  of  a  lockout 
or  strike  are  usually  at  liberty  to  seek  work  elsewhere; 
negotiations  with  the  firms  for  the  purpose  of  retaining  the 
positions  of  the  strikers  cease  until  the  power  of  the  union 
to  boycott  has  been  tested.  Furthermore,  the  actual  cost  of 
administration  is  usually  small.  At  most,  a  boycott  in- 
volves the  cost  of  circulars,  stationery,  and  postage,  and  the 
salaries  and  travelling  expenses  of  a  few  national  agents. 
Because  of  its  inexpensiveness  few  references  can  be  found 
to  the  means  adopted  by  labor  unions  to  finance  the  boycott. 
An  occasional  practice  in  the  early  days  of  the  boycott  seems 
to  have  consisted  in  levying  a  portion  of  the  expense  upon 
boycotted  employers.  This  device  could,  of  course,  be  used 
only  when  a  boycott  was  successful.  For  example,  in  the 
boycott  on  the  Rochester  clothing  manufacturers  in  1891  it 
was  reported  that  many  of  the  employers  were  "  willing  to 
pay  a  big  indemnity  to  the  National  Assembly  for  every 
expenditure  it  has  made  in  fighting  them."''®  A  boycott  by 
the  machinists  in  1897  resulted  in  the  payment  by  the  boy- 
cotted firms  of  a  "  portion  of  the  boycott  expenses."^^ 

Such  methods  did  not  receive  the  sanction  of  labor  or- 

^*  Constitution,  1912,  art.  xiii,  sec.  13.  The  Milwaukee  local 
union  of  the  Coopers  provides  for  the  detection  of  violations  of 
boycotts  through  the  shop  monitor.  "  If  a  monitor  of  a  shop  is  in- 
formed that  any  member  in  his  shop  buys  non-union  goods  .  .  . 
he  reports  it  to  the  union  and  the  member  is  fined  $1.00.  If  the 
monitor  fails  to  report  him  then  the  monitor  himself  is  fined  $2.00  " 
(Coopers*  International  Journal,  June,  1910,  p.  325). 

^0  Journal  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  July  30,  1891,  p.  4;  Weekly 
Bulletin  [Garment  Workers],  September  15,  1905,  p.  5. 

71  The  International  Wood  Worker,  February,  1897,  p.  234.  In 
the  boycott  on  Doelger  beer  in  1885  the  New  York  Central  Labor 
Union  imposed  as  a  condition  to  recalling  the  boycott  that  Doelger 
pay  $1000,  the  cost  of  the  struggle  (Schluter,  p.  116). 


124  THE   BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

ganizations  generally.  The  more  common  way  of  financing 
the  boycott  is  either  by  the  levying  of  special  assessments 
upon  the  members  of  the  union  or  by  the  appropriation  of 
fixed  sums  frop  the  general  treasury  of  the  union.  When 
in  1900  the  Hatters'  Union  boycotted  the  Berg  Company,  a 
two  per  cent,  assessment  was  levied  upon  all  districts ;  with 
the  proceeds  of  the  assessment  six  agents  were  put  on  the 
road  to  press  the  boycott."  The  Metal  Polishers,  on  the 
other  hand,  adopted  the  general  provision  that  fifty  dollars 
should  be  used  monthly  in  issuing  boycott  literature.''^  In 
boycotts  on  materials,  where  the  workmen  involved  are  as 
a  rule  forced  to  strike,  the  expenses  are  greater,  since  strike 
benefits  must  be  paid.  Here,  as  in  the  payment  of  all  other 
strike  benefits,  a  definite  mechanism  is  established  for  meet- 
ing those  expenses.  The  Carpenters  have  the  provision 
that  "in  strikes  against  unfair  trim,  benefits  shall  be  paid 
out  of  the  Unfair  Trim  and  Label  funds,  after  being  sanc- 
tioned by  the  Unfair  Trim  and  Label  Secretary  and  the 
General  President."^* 

In  the  last  decade  the  litigation  in  which  the  use  of  the 
boycott  has  involved  American  labor  unions  has  been  in- 
strumental in  adding  to  their  financial  burdens.  The  boy- 
cott can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  inexpen- 
sive of  resources.  In  1909  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
spent  for  attorneys  and  stenographic  reports  the  sum  of 
$14,000.''''  The  United  Hatters  were  reported  in  1910  as 
having  expended  $100,000  in  the  Danbury  Hatters'  case.''* 
The  details  of  the  financial  burden  imposed  upon  the  United 
Hatters  of  North  America,  a  union  with  a  membership  of 
less  than  ten  thousand,  by  the  verdict  granting  damages 
against  the  union  of  more  than  $250,000  are  still  fresh  in 
everyone's  mind.  The  legal  complications  attending  the 
boycott  upon  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Company  drew 

^2  Journal  of  the  United  Hatters,  February  i,  1900. 
78  The  Journal,  February,  1902,  p.  53. 
7*  The  Carpenter,  August,  1904,  p.  4. 
75  Proceedings,  1909,  p.  94. 

"^^  Proceedings  of  the  Thirtieth  Annual  Convention  of  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  of  Labor,  1910,  p.  117. 


MECHANISM   OF  THE  BOYCOTT  1 25 

from  the  executive  council  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  the  complaint  that  it  was  the  purpose  of  their  oppo- 
nents to  entangle  them  in  "interminable  Htigation,"  with  a 
view  to  compelling  "large  expenditures  in  defense."^^  At 
the  convention  of  the  same  year  the  president  and  the 
executive  council  were  authorized  to  issue  a  "special  as- 
sessment of  one  cent  per  capita  "  and  to  make  such  further 
assessments  as  should  be  found  necessary  for  the  legal  de- 
fense of  the  Federation.'^* 

In  imposing  the  boycott,  labor  organizations  are  fre- 
quently influenced  by  general  considerations  as  to  time  and 
place  and  by  facts  relating  to  the  character  of  the  commo- 
dity and  of  the  firm  which  they  are  about  to  boycott.^®  For 
example,  when  in  1887  a  boycott  upon  the  product  of  sev- 
eral New  Jersey  glass  manufacturers  was  contemplated, 
it  was  reported  that  orders  could  be  taken  away  from  the 
unfair  firms,  but  that  "  at  that  time  it  would  be  very  difficult 
to  find  a  place  to  put  them,  as  about  all  the  manufacturers 
have  all  the  orders  they  can  fill  this  season.  Any  further 
effort  in  this  direction  at  this  time  would  drive  a  large 
amount  of  trade  to  foreign  countries."  The  boycott  was, 
therefore,  postponed  until  the  following  year.®**  A  boycott 
against  the  manufacturs  of  sole  leather  in  Pennsylvania  was 

77  The  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Co.  vs.  The  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor,  et  al.  Copies  of  Pleadings,  Preliminary  Injunction 
Order,  Opinion  of  Judge  Gould,  and  Testimony  on  Hearing  for 
Permanent  Injunction,  p.  363. 

78  Ibid.,  p.  372. 

''^Von  Waltershausen  lays  down  the  following  conditions  neces- 
sary to  the  success  of  a  boycott:  (i)  it  must  not  be  waged  against 
monopolies;  (2)  it  must  be  waged  against  a  few  opponents;  (3)  the 
number  of  unionists  must  be  large  and  under  a  central  unifying 
authority;  (4)  it  should  be  waged  against  a  firm  that  sells  to  a 
local  market;  (5)  articles  of  luxury  should  not  be  boycotted,  and 
(6)  it  should  not  be  imposed  upon  goods  difficult  of  identification 
("Boycotten,  ein  neues  Kampfmittel  der  amerikanischen  Werk- 
vereine,"  p.  14). 

80  Proceedings  of  the  Eleventh  Regular  Session  of  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  1887,  p.  1336. 


126  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

found  to  be  inadvisable  because  "  three- fourths  of  the  firm's 
product  are  exported. "^^  Similar  difficulties  in  enforcing 
boycotts  upon  commodities  whose  identity  could  be  easily 
concealed  and  upon  goods  which  were  sold  to  consumers 
hostile  to  the  labor  movement  have  been  pointed  out  in  this 
and  an  earher  chapter.  Attention  has  not,  however,  been 
called  to  the  effect  upon  a  boycott  of  the  presence  or  ab- 
sence of  a  substitute  for  the  commodity  in  question. 

Trade  unions  have  generally  recognized  the  fact  that 
boycotts  cannot  be  imposed  upon  commodities  for  which 
there  is  no  adequate  substitute.  At  a  time  when  the  car- 
penters* union  was  able  to  enforce  its  boycott  upon  all  un- 
fair trim  that  was  destined  for  the  New  York  market,  it 
was  unable  to  boycott  the  so-called  sash  (i}i")  because  the 
amount  of  that  "  material  manufactured  by  union  concerns 
is  very  small  and  insufficient  to  supply  the  demand."®^  The 
Brewery  Workmen's  Union  was  often  handicapped  in  its 
boycotts  of  unfair  breweries  by  the  lack  of  a  substitute  for  the 
boycotted  beer.  It  was  recommended  in  1886  that  cooper- 
ative breweries  be  organized  with  a  view  to  supplying  a 
union  product  during  a  boycott.®^  The  Metal  Polishers 
recommended  the  unionizing  of  "  at  least  one  firm  that  man- 
ufactures builders'  hardware,"  so  that  the  members  of  the 
building-trades  unions  might  be  able  to  impose  and  enforce 
boycotts  upon  non-union  hardware  and  still  have  material 
to  work  upon.^* 

The  presence  of  a  substitute  may,  however,  under  certain 
circumstances  bring  disaster  to  the  boycotting  union.  Such 
a  situation  is  illustrated  in  the  experience  of  the  Stone  Cut- 
ters. The  refusal  of  these  workmen  to  set  stone  cut  by 
planers  is  said  to  have  led  to  the  substitution  for  stone  of 
such  building  materials  as  concrete  and  terra  cotta,  in  the 

81  Report  of  the  General  Executive  Board  at  the  Twelfth  Regular 
Session  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  1888, 
p.  124. 

82  Paine  Lumber  Co.  v.  United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and 
Joiners,  Subpoena,  Notice  of  Motion  for  Preliminary  Injunction, 
Bill  of  Complaint,  and  Affidavits,  p.  186. 

83  Schliiter,  p.  130. 

8*  The  Journal,  November,  1899,  p.  355. 


MECHANISM    OF   THE   BOYCOTT  127 

working  of  which  stone  cutters  have  no  part.  The  existence 
of  this  substitute,  obviously,  far  from  aiding  the  stone  cut- 
ters in  their  boycott,  results  in  a  contraction  of  the  field  of 
stone  cutters'  work.  The  original  proposition  as  regards 
the  necessity  for  a  substitute  should,  then,  be  modified  by 
noting ythat  the  boycott  is  likely  to  be  successful  if  the  sub- 
stitute for  the  boycotted  commodity  or  material  is  manu- 
factured by  organized  members  of  that  trade  which  seeks 
to  control  work  in  the  unfair  establishment. 

Where  an  industry  is  monopolized  or  where  the  product 
of  the  industry  is  protected  by  a  patent,  no  substitute  can 
be  usually  obtained  and  a  boycott  is  unavailing.  In  1904, 
for  instance,  the  Coopers  boycotted  Swift  and  Company, 
the  Chicago  packers.  The  boycott  was  ineffective,  "not 
because  it  was  unjustly  placed,  but  simply  because  people 
are  obliged  to  have  meat  and  cannot  boycott  the  only  source 
of  supply."®*^  The  same  difficulties  would  prevent  the  success- 
ful boycotting  of  such  firms  as  the  Standard  Oil  Company 
or  the  American  Tobacco  Company.  In  industries  in  which 
no  actual  monopoly  exists  the  effects  of  monopoly  may  be 
produced,  as  far  as  the  boycott  is  concerned,  by  the  forma- 
tion of  an  employers'  association.  A  boycott,  for  example, 
of  a  Chicago  clothing  firm  by  the  Garment  Workers  de- 
velops ordinarily,  because  of  the  influence  of  a  closely  knit 
employers'  association  in  the  clothing  trades,  into  a  boycott 
upon  the  products  of  all  manufacturers.^®  The  boycott  is, 
therefore,  materially  weakened  by  the  fact  that  the  union 
cannot  here,  as  it  can  where  an  employers'  association  does 
not  exist,  boycott  the  product  of  one  firm  and  recommend  in 
its  place  the  product  of  another;  but  it  must  enforce  a  gen- 
eral boycott  without  being  able  to  offer  the  retailer  a  suit- 
able substitute.  As  soon,  of  course,  as  such  associations  as- 
sume an  interstate  or  a  national  character,  a  boycott  upon 
the  product  of  a  member  of  the  association  becomes  for  this 
reason  almost  impossible. 

85  Coopers'  International  Journal,  July,  1904,  p.  399. 
••Proceedings,  1906,  p.  29. 


128  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

The  foregoing  discussion  of  the  rules  and  regulations 
adopted  by  American  labor  organizations  with  a  view  to 
rendering  the  boycott  more  effective  places  perhaps  too  much 
emphasis  upon  the  effect  in  labor  disputes  of  the  actual 
waging  of  the  boycott.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  effective- 
ness of  the  boycott  consists  in  its  potential  rather  than  in 
its  actual  accomplishments.  The  threat  is  often  more  effec- 
tive than  the  fact.  Just  as  "  the  strike  which  is  held  in  re- 
serve to  be  resorted  to  only  in  case  of  need,  is  the  chief  re- 
liance of  organized  labor,  and  a  part  of  the  pay  that  men 
get  when  they  never  strike  at  all  is  due  to  their  ultimate 
power  to  do  this,"®^  so  the  impending  boycott,  held  as  a 
mailed  hand  over  the  head  of  a  recalcitrant  employer,  wrests 
from  him  important  concessions.  In  other  words,  a  true 
measure  of  the  influence  of  the  boycott  is  not  to  be  found 
in  a  count  of  specific  instances  of  failure  and  success;  but 
rather  in  the  silent,  but  no  less  important,  surrender  to  the 
unions  of  those  employers  who,  fearing  the  force  inherent 
in  the  combined  purchasing  power  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  laborers,  are  unwilling  to  expose  their  businesses  to  the 
dangers  of  a  boycott. 

•7  J.  B.  Clark,  The  Problem  of  Monopoly,  p.  62. 


CHAPTER   VI 

The  Law  and  the  Boycott 

The  legal  status  of  the  boycott  in  this  country  has  re- 
ceived full  and  competent  treatment  from  Stimson/  Mar- 
tin,2  Clark,^  and  Laidler.*  The  conclusions  of  these  writers 
substantiate  the  view  commonly  held  that  boycotts,  with  the 
exception  of  certain  forms  of  primary  boycott,  have  been 
in  most  cases  adjudged  illegal  by  federal  and  state  courts 
as  constituting  violations  of  the  common  law  and  of  special 
federal  and  state  statutes.  The  establishment  of  the  illegal- 
ity of  the  boycott,  however,  still  leaves  unanswered  a  ques- 
tion of  fundamental  importance.  How  far  have  the  legal 
restrictions  which  have  been  imposed  upon  the  boycott  pre- 
vented trade  unions  from  employing  that  weapon  as  a  means 
of  industrial  pressure?  Obviously,  if  the  boycott  be  a 
device  of  such  a  character  as  to  be  beyond  the  arm  of  the 
law,  adverse  judicial  decisions  and  plans  for  legalizing  the 
boycott  become  matters  of  purely  academic  interest  and  of 
secondary  importance.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  such  deci- 
sions have  had  the  effect  of  seriously  hindering  the  activi- 
ties of  labor  organizations,  in  so  far  as  they  find  it  neces- 
sary to  supplement  their  ordinary  resources  with  the  boy- 
cott, then  the  principles  underlying  judicial  dicta  and  the 
plans  for  either  removing  or  extending,  as  public  policy  may 
dictate,  the  legal  disability  of  the  boycott,  should  become 
the  subject  of  grave  consideration.  It  is  now  necessary  to 
determine,  therefore,  the  extent  to  which  the  various  means 
employed  by  the  courts  in  their  efforts  to  control  the  boy- 
cott have  from  time  to  time  proved  effective. 

1  Handbook  to  the  Labor  Law  of  the  United  States. 

2  The  Modern  Law  of  Labor  Unions. 

8  The  Law  of  the  Employment  of  Labor. 

*  Boycotts  and  the  Labor  Struggle.    This  work  contains  the  latest 
and  most  complete  discussion  of  the  legality  of  the  boycott. 
9  129 


130  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

From  1880  to  1902  boycotts  were  employed  with  increas- 
ing frequency  in  spite  of  their  illegality.  The  injunction, 
even  when  accompanied  by  criminal  or  civil  action  against 
the  agents  of  labor  unions,  was  totally  inadequate  to  cope 
with  the  situation.  When  an  injunction  was  issued  in  one 
city  against  a  firm  which  conducted  an  interstate  business, 
the  boycott  would  be  prosecuted  with  redoubled  vigor  in 
neighboring  localities;  when  one  member  of  a  boycotting 
committee  was  enjoined  from  further  advertising  the  fact 
of  boycott,  his  place  was  promptly  taken  by  another;  and, 
finally,  when  one  union  was  restrained  from  officially  insti- 
tuting a  boycott  against  an  unfair  firm,  the  same  results 
could  be  produced  by  having  the  boycott  initiated  by  an- 
other union.  Thus,  in  the  boycott  in  1898  against  the  New 
York  Sun  the  president  and  several  members  of  the  local 
typographical  union  of  New  York  were  enjoined  from  boy- 
cotting the  New  York  Sun  or  its  advertisers.  In  order  to 
evade  the  provisions  of  this  injunction,  the  resolutions  boy- 
cotting that  paper  were  introduced  at  the  convention  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  by  the  Detroit  Trades 
Council  and  not  by  the  Typographical  Union.^  The  best 
concrete  evidence  of  the  ineffectiveness  of  the  injunction 
is  to  be  found  in  the  activity  during  this  period  of  the 
Knights  of  Labor  and  later  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  and  its  constituent  unions.  Unfair  lists  were  pub- 
lished with  regularity;  plans  for  conducting  campaigns 
against  boycotted  firms  were  discussed  with  a  naive  disre- 
gard of  the  law;  resolutions  to  boycott  were  endorsed  in 
journals  and  convention  proceedings  with  a  degree  of  pub- 
licity that  actually  courted  legal  interference.  Not  that  the 
injunction  had  no  influence ;  for  in  1902  the  complaint  was 
made  that  "the  injunction  in  labor  disputes  is  becoming 
more  and  more  general;  its  value  to  the  employer  and  its 
danger  to  the  workmen  are  becoming  better  and  better  un- 
derstood."®     But  the  cumulative  effect  of  the  injunction 

5  Proceedings,  1899,  p.  83. 

«  Proceedings  of  the  Twenty-second  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  1902,  p.  144. 


LAW   AND   THE  BOYCOTT  I3I 

Upon  the  employment  of  the  boycott  was  to  impose  upon 
trade  unions  a  series  of  temporary  embarrassments  or  an- 
noyances rather  than  a  permanent  disability. 

The  organization  in  1902  of  the  American  Anti-Boycott 
Association  marks  the  turning-point  in  the  legal  position  of 
the  boycott ;  from  that  time  on  it  began  to  lose  its  immunity. 
In  the  suit  of  Mrl  Loewe  against  the  United  Hatters*  Union, 
one  of  the  first  cases  to  be  tried  under  the  auspices  of  the 
American  Anti-Boycott  Association,  it  was  the  desire  of 
that  organization  to  obtain  rulings  on  two  important  points : 
(i)  "Whether  the  members  of  a  voluntary  unincorporated 
association  are,  on  the  principle  of  the  law  of  agency,  per- 
sonally responsible  for  the  acts  of  its  officers  and  agents." 
(2)  "  Whether  the  extension  of  a  boycott  by  a  labor  union 
beyond  the  borders  of  a  state  is  a  conspiracy  in  restraint  of 
trade,  and,  therefore,  an  illegal  act  under  the  Sherman  Anti- 
Trust  Act."^  The  affirmative  answer  to  both  questions  was 
destined  soon  to  exert  a  profound  influence. 

(i)  It  was  apparently  the  opinion  of  the  counsel  of  the 
American  Anti-Boycott  Association  that  the  only  effective 
method  of  eradicating  the  boycott  consisted  in  the  placing 
of  full  legal  responsibility,  in  the  shape  of  damages,  upon 
every  member  of  the  union  that  initiated  the  boycott.  In- 
stead of  restricting  the  punishment  for  the  violation  of  an 
injunction  to  fines  or  damages  imposed  upon  the  officers  or 
agents,  the  more  effective  plan  was  hit  upon  of  involving  in 
the  action  every  member  of  the  union.  Accordingly,  it  was 
reported  in  the  Hatters'  Journal  in  1903  that  "nearly  one 
hundred  and  fifty  Danbury  and  Bethel  men,  members  of 
the  local  branches  of  the  United  Hatters  of  North  America, 
are  named  in  the  suits  [Loewe  v.  Lawlor]  and  their  real 
estate  and  bank  accounts  attached."®     The  effect  of  this  ac- 

''  Hilbert,  p.  214. 

8  Journal  of  the  United  Hatters,  October,  1903,  p.  i ;  see  also 
Laidler,  p.  156.  This  case  was  finally  disposed  of  on  January  5, 
191 5,  when  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  affirmed  the  judg- 
ment of  the  lower  courts  which  had  awarded  the  plaintiff  (Loewe 
&  Co.)  treble  damages  against  one  hundred  and  fifty  members  of 
the  Danbury  and  Bethel  local  unions  of  hatters.    The  agreement 


132  THE   BOYCOTT  IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

tion  was  instantaneous.  The  Hatters'  Union,  which  had 
for  a  long  time  been  an  aggressive  boycotting  organization, 
thereafter  practically  abandoned  that  weapon.  Nor  is  the 
cause  for  this  sudden  reversal  in  policy  difficult  to  compre- 
hend. '  The  knowledge  instilled  by  this  decision  into  each  in- 
dividual that  membership  in  a  boycotting  union  constantly 
exposes  him  and  his  property  to  action  for  damages  has 
without  doubt  induced  in  trade  unionists  an  extreme  con- 
servatism, and  even  timidity,  that  would  effectually  restrain 
them  from  becoming  parties  to  the  future  use  of  the  boycottt^ 
.  Now  that  this  device  has  been  found  so  successful  in  the 
Danbury  case,  it  is  probably  the  intention  of  the  American 
Anti-Boycott  Association  to  bring  similar  actions  for  dam- 
ages against  the  members  of  other  unions.  The  association 
has,  for  example,  for  several  years  been  conducting  the  legal 
fight  of  the  manufacturers  of  boycotted  trim  against  the 
United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners.  Although 
the  courts  have  issued  injunctions  against  the  Carpenters' 
Union,  these  have  not  been  very  effective  on  account  of 
their  inability  to  enjoin  workmen  for  refusing  to  work  upon 
certain  material.®  Indeed,  by  the  time  the  injunction  was 
issued  the  boycott  notices  had  been  so  widely  and  so  thor- 
oughly disseminated  that  no  further  advertisement  was 
necessary.  Consequently,  the  only  part  of  the  boycott  that 
was  capable  of  being  enjoined  was  ordinarily  completed 
before  an  injunction  could  be  obtained.^**  Injunctions  have, 
however,  served  the  purpose  of  obtaining  from  the  courts 
the  judgment  that  the  boycott  is  illegal  and  of  establishing 

made,  however,  between  the  local  unions  and  the  national  organi- 
zation, whereby  the  fine  is  to  be  borne  by  the  latter,  relieves  the 
individual  members  of  the  greater  part  of  the  financial  burden. 

8  "  The  courts  cannot  compel  men  to  work,  and  they  can  leave 
for  any  reason  they  see  fit,  or  without  reason;  and  if  it  be  that 
the  carpenters  in  this  case  desired  to  comply  with  the  rules  and 
regulations  of  their  brotherhood  there  is  no  law  that  can  prevent 
them  or  could  prevent  Rice  from  informing  them  that  the  trim 
was  non-union  material"  (Bossert  v.  United  Brotherhood  of  Car- 
penters and  Joiners,  "77  Misc.  592,  quoted  in  the  New  York  De- 
partment of  Labor  Bulletin,  vol.  xiv,  no.  53,  p.  412). 

'^^  Furthermore,  practically  the  whole  New  York  market  was 
unionized  before  the  American  Anti-Boycott  Association  began  its 
activities. 


LAW   AND   THE  BOYCOTT  1 33 

the  fact  that  the  companies  involved  have  suffered  irre- 
parable damages  at  the  hands  of  the  unions  imposing  the 
boycotts.  The  next  step,  therefore,  is  the  inauguration  ty 
the  injured  firms  of  suits  to  recover  damages  for  the  losses 
sustained  during  the  operation  of  the  boycott. 

(2)  On  February  3,  1908,  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  rendered  a  unanimous  decision  in  the  Danbury  Hat- 
ters* Case,  holding  "that  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  ap>- 
plies  to  combinations  of  labor  that  accomplish  through  the 
medium  of  a  boycott  an  interference  with  interstate  com- 
merce, and  sustaining  the  right  of  a  complainant  suffering 
from  such  interference  to  recover  damages  to  the  extent  of 
three  times  the  amount  of  injury  substantiated  and 
awarded."^^  This  decision  was  important  for  two  reasons. 
In  the  first  place,  it  permitted  firms  doing  an  interstate  busi- 
ness which  were  previously  compelled  to  take  action  against 
trade  unions  in  each  State  where  the  boycott  was  in  force  to 
proceed  against  such  organizations  in  a  much  simpler  and 
more  direct  fashion.  Discussing  the  necessity  for  the  fed- 
eral control  of  the  boycott,  Mr.  James  M.  Beck,  general 
counsel  of  the  American  Anti-Boycott  Association,  said: 
"  No  manufacturer,  without  great  loss  and  possible  ruin, 
could  follow  Mr.  Gompers'  emissaries  from  State  to  State 
and  Circuit  to  Circuit  and  obtain  injunctions.  As  in  the 
great  Pullman  strike  only  the  United  States  Government 
was  effectual  to  stop  it  by  its  injunction  against  Debs,  simi- 
larly only  the  Federal  Government  can  effectually  destroy 
this  wide-spread  conspiracy  of  the  Federation  against  the 
freedom  of  commerce  and  the  liberty  of  the  indivdual."^^ 
In  the  second  place,  a  decision  of  the  United  States  Su- 
preme Court,  because  of  the  prestige  and  power  of  that 
tribunal,  carries  an  influence  which  the  decisions  of  state 
courts  lack.  Not  only  has  the  judgment  in  the  Hatters' 
Case  been  instrumental  in  crystallizing  public  opinion  as  to 

11  Convention  Bulletin  of  the  American  Anti-Boycott  Association, 
March,  1908,  p.  12.    See  also  note  8  above. 

12  Ibid.,  p.  16. 


134  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

illegality  of  the  boycott,  but  it  should  also  exert  considerable 
influence  in  shaping  future  decisions  of  state  courts. 

It  is  erroneous,  however,  to  assume  that  as  a  consequence 
of  these  decisions  the  boycott  has  disappeared  from  Amer- 
ican industrial  conflicts.  A  decrease  in  publicity  has,  of 
course,  resulted,  for  in  March,  1908,  Mr.  Gompers  an- 
nounced that  under  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  "  the 
publication  of  a  *  We  don't  patronize '  list  in  the  American 
Federationist  or  any  other  publication  makes  the  organiza- 
tion and  the  individuals  composing  it  liable  to  monetary 
damages  and  imprisonment.  This  being  the  case,  I  feel 
obliged  to  discontinue  the  *We  Don't  Patronize*  list."^* 
Similar  action  was  taken  also  by  the  editors  of  the  journals 
of  national  unions.  Yet  an  official  of  the  American  Feder- 
ation of  Labor  admitted  in  1913  that  the  boycotting  activity 
of  American  trade  unions  was  just  as  great  at  that  time  as 
during  the  publication  of  unfair  lists.  And  Mr.  Beck,  com- 
menting on  the  action  of  Mr.  Gompers,  stated  that  "we, 
who  have  pushed  this  fight  for  so  many  years,  are  gratified 
that  Mr.  Gompers  has  so  far  yielded  to  the  authority  of  the 
law  as  to  drop  the  'unfair  list*  from  the  columns  of  the 
Federationist,  but  we  are  not  deceived  by  this  concession. 
We  know  that  the  boycott  can  be  pushed  secretly  as  well  as 
openly,  by  innuendo  as  by  direct  order."^*  In  spite  of  these 
evidences  of  secret  activity,  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  aver- 
age trade-union  member,  inspired  on  the  one  hand  by  a 
feeling  of  awe  for  the  power  of  the  federal  government 
and  on  the  other  by  the  fear  of  personal  pecuniary  loss,  is 
now  much  less  inclined  to  sanction  a  boycotting  policy  in  his 
union  than  he  was  before  the  promulgation  of  these  deci- 

13  American  Federationist,  March,  1908,  p.  192. 

1*  Convention  Bulletin  of  the  American  Anti-Boycott  Association, 
March,  1908,  p.  15.  "  The  most  that  the  Van  Cleaves  can  hope  for 
in  prosecuting  the  suits  against  the  officers  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  is  to  check  the  openness  with  which  the  boycott  is  at 
present  applied  by  the  unions.  They  may  succeed  in  forcing  the 
labor  unions  into  more  secrecy  in  such  matters,  but  this  will  not 
injure  the  cause  of  organized  labor,  for  it  is  a  well  known  fact 
among  men  well  versed  in  trade  unionism  that  the  secret  boycott 
is  more  effective  than  the  open  one"  (Coopers*  International  Jour- 
nal, October,  1907,  p.  580). 


LAW  AND   THE  BOYCOTT  135 

sions."  Furthermore,  the  increased  activity  exhibited  by 
trade-union  officials  in  recent  years  in  their  desire  to  obtain 
the  exemption  of  labor  organizations  from  the  Sherman 
Anti-Trust  Act,  with  the  consequent  legalizing  of  the  boy- 
cott,^^  is  ample  testimony  that  the  campaign  of  the  Amer- 
ican Anti-Boycott  Association  has  not  been  without  its 
fruits. 

The  recognition  by  trade  unionists  that  the  boycott  can 
no  longer  be  employed  with  impunity  has  led  to  efforts  to 
remove  legal  obstacles.  It  is,  therefore,  desirable  at  this 
point  to  examine  the  attitude  of  both  employers  and  work- 
ingmen  toward  the  boycott,  and  to  decide  if  possible  upon 
the  validity  of  their  respective  claims. 

Probably  no  aspect  of  trade-union  activity  has  been  at  the 
same  time  so  vigorously  denounced  by  its  enemies  and  so 
spiritedly  defended  by  its  friends  as  the  boycott.  By  the 
employer  it  is  regarded  as  a  violation  of  the  right  of 
"  freedom  of  directing  one's  business  and  one's  property 
without  coercion,  threat,  or  intimidation,"^^  and  by  labor  or- 
ganizations it  is  justified  by  the  "constitutional  guarantee 
of  the  right  of  Free  Press  and  Free  Speech."^®    Charac- 

15  The  effect  of  the  decision  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court 
can  be  seen  in  the  following  report  of  the  general  executive  board 
of  the  Coopers'  Union:  "The  Finch  Distilling  Company  of  Pitts- 
burg having  been  removed  from  the  unfair  list,  the  Secretary- 
Treasurer  was  instructed  to  take  up  and  push  the  fight  against  the 
Valley  City  Milling  Company  of  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan.  We 
were  pushing  this  fight  when  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  declared  boycotting  to  be  unlawful.  Nothing  has  since  been 
done  in  the  matter"  (Coopers*  International  Journal,  September, 
1908,  p.  542). 

16  For  an  interesting  description  of  the  efforts  made  by  labor 
organizations  to  have  the  trade  unions  exempted  from  the  provi- 
sions of  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Act,  see  "  The  Contest  in  Congress 
between  Organized  Labor  and  Organized  Business,"  by  Philip  G. 
Wright,  in  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  vol.  xxix,  p.  235. 

17  Report  of  Secretary  Boocock  in  the  Convention  Bulletin  of 
the  American  Anti-Boycott  Association,  February,   1907. 

18 "  I  have  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  perhaps  the  most 
effective  answer  which  could  be  interposed  to  injunctions  issued  to 
restrain  organized  labor  from  issuing  circulars  in  regard  to  the 
*  boycott  *  is  the  constitutional  guarantee  of  the  right  of  Free  Press 
and  Free  Speech"  (Report  of  President  Gompers  to  the  Twenty- 
second  Annual  Convention  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor, 
Proceedings,  1902,  p.  19). 


136  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

terized  by  the  Anthracite  Coal  Strike  Commission  as  a 
"  word  of  evil  omen  and  unhappy  origin,"  as  a  "  cruel 
weapon  of  aggression,"  whose  use  is  "  immoral  and  anti- 
social,"^^ it  is  described  by  a  prominent  labor  leader  as 
"nothing  more  than  leaving  something  or  somebody  alone. 
It  is  following  the  scriptural  injunction  :  *  If  thine  eye  offend 
thee,  pluck  it  out  and  cast  it  from  thee.'  "^^ 

The  employer,  while  admitting  in  many  cases  the  right  of 
workingmen  to  combine  for  higher  wages  and  improved 
working  conditions,  believes  that  such  combinations  should 
be  permitted  to  issue  only  as  strikes.^^  Even  though  the 
ultimate  object  of  the  boycott  may  be  the  "  amelioration  of 
the  conditions"  of  labor,  its  immediate  object,  he  main- 
tains, is  "  the  injury  and  ruin  of  the  manufacturer."^^  Fur- 
thermore, a  "man's  business  is  his  property,"  and  inasmuch 
as  a  boycott  is  "an  organized  effort  to  exclude  a  person 
from  business  relations  with  others,"  it  constitutes  an  un- 
lawful interference  with  a  fundamental  right.^^ 

To  these  arguments  trade  unionists  answer  in  substance, 
first,  that  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish,  in  most  cases  of 
boycott,  between  the  immediate  and  the  remote  motives  im- 
pelling the  union  to  act.^*     If  a  union  boycotts  John  Smith, 

i»  Report  of  the  Anthracite  Coal  Strike  Commission,  in  Bulletin, 
U.  S.  Department  of  Labor,  May,  1903,  no.  46,  p.  502. 

20  Statement  of  Andrew  Furuseth,  President  of  the  International 
Seamen's  Union  of  America,  before  the  Senate  Committee  on  Inter- 
state Commerce  (Hearings  before  the  Committee  on  Interstate 
Commerce,  United  States  Senate,  62d  Cong.,  Pursuant  to  S.  Res.  98, 
vol.  ii.  parts  xviii-xxvii,  p.  1874). 

21  "  The  only  pressure  that  may  be  brought  to  bear  on  the  em- 
ployer must  be  limited  to  that  which  inseparably  grows  out  of  their 
right  to  quit  work  and  deprive  him  of  the  services  of  a  large 
number  of  people"  (W.  G.  Merritt,  Limitations  of  the  Right  to 
Strike,  p.  14). 

22  Merritt,  The  Neglected  Side  of  Trade  Unionism,  The  Boycott, 
p.  6. 

23  Ibid. 

24  Mr.  Gompers  in  discussing  with  Senator  Cummins  the  Dan- 
bury  Hatters'  boycott  said :  "  The  motive,  after  all,  is  the  thing, 
in  most  instances,  and  the  motive  attributed  to  us  was  the  destruc- 
tion of  this  man's  business,  the  diversion  of  his  business.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  motive  was  to  bring  about  contractual  relations 
of  mutual  advantage  and  of  general  advantage  and  of  social  ad- 
vantage"   (Hearings   before   the    Committee    on    Interstate    Com- 


LAW  AND  THE  BOYCOTT  137 

an  employer,  it  professes  to  have  no  other  motive  than  to 
force  him  to  grant  its  demands;  the  same  motive  operates 
to  induce  a  union  to  strike  against  an  employer.  In  one 
case  the  union  seeks  to  prevent  the  employer  from  manu- 
facturing his  goods,  and  in  the  other,  since  the  strike  has 
failed,  it  seeks  to  prevent  him  from  disposing  of  them. 
Secondly,  labor  unions  deny  that  a  boycott  may  injure  a 
property  right,  since  "  no  man  has  a  property  right  in  a  cus- 
tomer or  in  a  laborer  who  works  for  him."^^  On  the  con- 
trary, they  argue,  "  to  withhold  patronage  is  a  right  and  to 
tell  why  it  is  withheld  is  also  a  right."^^  And  from  this 
point  it  is  but  a  short  step  for  them  to  assert  that  men  have 
"  a  natural  right  to  bestow  collectively  that  which  they  have 
the  right  to  bestow  individually,  and  to  withhold  collectively 
that  which  they  have  the  right  to  withhold  individually."^^ 
Elements  of  truth  can  no  doubt  be  found  in  the  conten- 
tions of  both  parties  to  the  dispute.  Boycotts  are  some- 
times imposed  with  the  prime  intention  of  injuring  the  em- 
ployer in  disputes  where  there  is  only  a  remote  possibility 
of  improving  working  conditions.  As  a  general  proposi- 
tion, too,  it  must  be  admitted  that  men  should  be  guaran- 
teed the  right  to  conduct  their  business  without  the  fear  of 
unwarranted  coercion  or  intimidation.     On  the  other  hand, 

merce  in  United  States  Senate,  62d  Cong.,  Pursuant  to  S.  Res.  98, 
vol.  ii,  parts  xviii-xxvii,  p.  1763).    See  also  the  discussion  between 
Mr.  Furuseth  and  Senator  Brandegee  as  to  the  object  of  a  union  in 
imposing  a  boycott   (ibid.,  p.  1875). 
26  The  Carpenter,  February,  1909,  p.  33. 

26  Ibid.,  July,  1901,  p.  5.  "  If  the  merits  of  the  Buck  Stove,  for 
instance,  were  fraudulently  extolled  by  the  maker,  the  publication 
of  that  fact  ought  to  be  and  would  be  lawful.  The  Buck  Stove 
customers  have  a  right  to  know  the  truth  about  this  important 
element  in  determining  their  action  as  buyers.  But  customers  are 
influenced  by  other  considerations  than  the  inherent  merits  of  the 
commodity  they  buy.  .  .  .  They  might  not  like  to  buy  commodities 
produced  by  under-paid  and  over-worked  labor.  It  is,  therefore, 
no  wrong  to  let  them  know  this  fact,  in  cases  in  which  it  is  the 
fact  and  to  appeal  to  them  not  to  buy.  And  so  of  those  who 
prefer  *  union-made  '  goods  to  *  scab-made  *  goods  ;  the  manufacturer 
has  no  property  right  in  secrecy  as  to  that  fact"  (The  Public, 
quoted  in  the  Weekly  Bulletin  [Garment  Workers],  February  26, 
1909,  p.  8). 

27  Proceedings  of  the  Nineteenth  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  pp.  10,  147. 


138  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN   TRADE   UNIONS 

it  is  equally  obvious  that  in  most  industrial  disputes  labor 
organizations  impose  boycotts  not  with  a  view  to  injuring 
the  employer,  but  to  obtain  from  him  concessions  that  are 
essential  to  the  life  and  welfare  of  the  union.  Similarly, 
the  right  to  combine  and  withhold  patronage  is  in  some 
cases  legitimate,  since  even  the  courts,  by  holding  the  pri- 
mary boycott  legal,  have,  to  a  limited  extent,  recognized  that 
right.  The  question  of  the  morality  or  immorality  of  the 
boycott  as  an  industrial  weapon  cannot,  however,  be  settled 
by  referring  merely  to  the  abstract  rights  of  those  affected 
by  its  exercise.  Another  important  element  must  still  be 
considered,  namely,  the  function  of  the  boycott  in  modern 
industrial  life. 

In  an  analysis  in  an  earlier  chapter^^  of  the  conditions 
imder  which  the  boycott  emerges  it  was  pointed  out  that 
the  boycott  arises — first,  where  organization  by  any  other 
means  is  either  impossible  or  unlikely  because  of  the  apathy 
of  workmen  or  the  hostility  of  employers,  and,  second,  to 
supplement  strikes  which  threaten  to  be  unsuccessful  be- 
cause the  employer  has  succeeded  in  replacing  strikers  with 
strike-breakers.  In  both  cases  the  boycott  is  an  indispen- 
sable resource  of  labor  organizations.  Without  it  organiza- 
tion in  many  trades  would  have  been  either  impossible  or 
long  delayed.  The  history  of  the  brewery  workers'  move- 
ment, for  example,  affords  strong  evidence  of  the  service  of 
the  boycott.  Opposed  during  the  seventies  and  eighties 
by  employers'  associations,  which  seemed  invincible  in  their 
opposition  to  labor  unions,  the  Brewery  Workmen's  Union, 
with  the  aid  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  and  of  such  trade  or- 
ganizations as  the  Carpenters'  Union,  by  the  effective  appli- 
cation of  the  boycott  laid  the  foundations  for  what  was 
later  to  develop  into  one  of  the  strongest  labor  organiza- 
tions in  this  country.  The  Garment  Workers,  also,  in  early 
struggles  with  the  Rochester  Combine  and  later  with  em- 
ployers' associations  in  Chicago  and  Philadelphia  were 
forced  by  the  intense  opposition  of  employers  to  send  agents 

28  Chapter  ii. 


LAW   AND  THE  BOYCOTT  1 39 

on  the  road  in  order  to  attack  the  employers  through  their 
customers.  With  even  greater  effectiveness,  if  less  ex- 
tensively, the  boycott,  together  with  the  other  resources  of 
the  union,  has  been  again  and  again  employed  by  the  Prin- 
ters. In  a  campaign  of  organization  which  lasted  perhaps 
less  than  a  decade  and  in  which  the  boycott  played  a  promi- 
nent part,  the  Hatters'  Union  succeeded  in  organizing  one 
hundred  and  sixty-six  of  the  one  hundred  and  seventy-eight 
fur  hat  manufacturers  of  the  country .^^  The  success  of 
the  United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners  in  or- 
ganizing wood  mills,  solely  by  the  use  of  the  boycott,  in  the 
face  of  the  apathy  of  the  workmen  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  hostility  of  the  trim  manufacturers  on  the  other,  need 
not  be  again  recounted.^® 

Nor  is  it  correct  to  assume  that  the  need  for  the  boycott 
as  an  organizing  agency  has  now  passed.  Organization 
has  doubtless  within  the  last  ten  years  received  an  additional 
impetus,  but  there  still  remain  whole  sections  of  industries 
and  individual  establishments  which  it  will  be  impossible  to 
organize  without  the  employment  by  the  laborers  of  their 
combined  purchasing  power.  A  case  in  point  is  the  shirt, 
collar,  and  cuff  manufacturing  industry.  Here  the  em- 
ployers oppose  organization;  what  little  organization  has 
arisen  in  spite  of  this  opposition  has  been  ineffectual  be- 
cause of  the  refusal  of  the  employers  to  entertain  commit- 
tees from  the  organized  sections.^^  Moreover,  because  of 
the  lack  of  adequate  defense  funds  and  because  of  the  ease 
with  which  strikers  may  be  replaced,  a  strike  is  out  of  the 
question.  Accordingly,  a  refusal  to  buy  and  a  request  to 
the  friends  of  labor  that  they  too  shall  refuse  to  buy  are 
forced  upon  the  union  by  the  exigencies  of  the  situation. 
The  same  state  of  affairs  obtains,  perhaps  to  a  lesser  de- 
gree, in  other  industries.     Such  unions  as  the  Bakers  and 

2»  Statement  of  Daniel  Davenport,  general  counsel  for  the 
American  Anti-Boycott  Association  to  the  Committee  on  Interstate 
Commerce,  United  States  Senate,  626.  Cong.,  vol.  ii,  parts  xviii- 
xxvii,  p.  1995. 

*^  See  Chapter  ii. 

81  Weekly  Bulletin  [Garment  Workers],  May  13,  1910,  p.  i. 


140  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

Confectioners,  the  Metal  Polishers,  the  Broom  Makers,  the 
Bookbinders,  and  others  have  made  effective  use  in  the 
past  and  must  necessarily  continue  to  make  effective  use  of 
the  boycott  as  a  weapon  of  last  resort.  The  boycott  on 
materials,  as  employed  by  the  Carpenters,  presents  even 
greater  possibilities  as  an  organizing  device.  Used  by 
stronger  unions  with  a  view  to  helping  the  weaker,  it  prom- 
ises to  be  of  inestimable  value  in  extending  organization, 
particularly  among  unskilled  laborers.  Regarded,  then,  as 
a  resource  of  trade  unionism,  the  boycott  performs  an  im- 
portant service  in  fostering  the  growth  of  organizations 
that  have  for  several  generations  developed  with  the  sanc- 
tion and  support  of  society. 

As  a  further  attempt  to  establish  the  morality  and  pro- 
priety of  the  use  of  the  boycott,  it  has  been  compared  with 
another  trade-union  measure  which  for  almost  a  century 
has  been  regarded  as  ethically  proper  and  socially  desirable. 
This  measure  is  the  strike.  Between  the  boycott  and  the 
strike  there  is  said  to  be  a  close  analogy  which  has  in  most 
discussions  of  the  boycott  not  been  sufficiently  emphasized.^^ 
The  right  of  one  person  to  cease  work  has  been  recognized ; 
the  right  of  men  to  combine  and  cease  work  is  also  recog- 
nized. Likewise,  the  right  of  one  individual  to  withdraw 
his  patronage  is  admittedly  a  legal  right;  a  combination  of 
persons  to  withdraw  patronage  is,  on  the  other  hand,  de- 
clared a  conspiracy  and  is  held  to  be  illegal.  Yet  both 
combinations  may  have  been  formed  with  the  end  in  view 
of  obtaining  concessions  from  the  employer.  Furthermore, 
the  mechanisms  of  the  strike  and  of  the  boycott  are  markedly 
similar.  In  the  boycott  the  facts  in  the  dispute  are  pub- 
lished and  efforts  are  made  to  destroy  the  business  of  the 
unfair  firm  by  diverting  its  patrons  to  competitors ;  in  the 
strike  the  effort  is  again  made  to  destroy  the  business  of  a 
firm,  but  in  this  case  by  keeping  from  a  manufacturer  the 
necessary  labor  power.  The  boycott  committees  which  call 
on  customers  in  the  one  case  and  the  pickets  who  interview 

32Laidler,  p.  212. 


LAW   AND   THE  BOYCOTT  I4I 

probable  strike-breakers  in  the  other  perform  acts  which  in 
purpose  and  in  effect  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  differen- 
tiate. 

This  close  analogy  between  the  strike  and  the  boycott 
was  pointed  out  by  one  of  the  attorneys  of  the  American 
Anti-Boycott  Association.  "  Its  [the  strike's]  purpose  and 
effect,"  he  writes,  "is  usually  the  same  as  the  boycott  or 
picketing,  as  both  of  these  weapons  are  the  result  of  efforts 
to  isolate  the  manufacturer  and  cut  off  his  business  inter- 
course in  such  a  way  that  he  will  be  compelled  to  yield  to 
certain  demands;  the  strike  isolates  him  from  his  em- 
ployees ;  the  boycott  isolates  him  from  customers  and  sup- 
plies ;  and  both  employees,  patrons,  and  supplies  are  equally 
indispensable  to  the  conduct  of  his  business.  The  strike 
cannot  be  differentiated  from  the  boycott  on  principle  unless 
it  be  on  the  plea  that  it  is  merely  the  exercise  by  men  in 
combination  of  their  right  at  any  time  to  terminate  the  rela- 
tion of  employer  and  employee.  If  limited  to  such  a  pur- 
pose its  objectionability  in  a  measure  disappears,  but  at  the 
best  it  is  a  right  of  a  most  anomalous  nature."^^  The  pur- 
pose and  effect  of  the  boycott  being  the  same  as  those  of  a 
strike,  it  is  difficult  for  laborers  and  their  sympathizers  to 
see  why  men  should  not  be  permitted  to  combine  to  ter- 
minate the  relation  of  vendor  and  vendee  as  well  as  that  of 
employer  and  employee.®* 

33Merritt,  Limitations  of  the  Right  to  Strike,  p.  11. 

3*  "Another  distinction  the  law  draws,  which  seems  to  them 
[trade  unionists]  unfair,  is  that  between  strikes  and  boycotts.  One 
way  in  which  the  obdurate  employer  may  be  made  to  respect  the 
right  of  his  men  to  organize  is  by  inducing  his  customers  to  with- 
draw their  patronage  unless  he  treats  his  employees  in  a  manner 
that  seems  to  these  customers  fair.  Trade  unionists  see  no  reason 
why,  feeling  as  they  do,  in  regard  to  the  right  of  wage-earners  to 
organize,  they  should  not  refuse  to  patronize  an  employer  who 
denies  them  this  right.  To  make  such  refusal  effective,  they  think 
that  they  should  be  allowed  to  publish  the  names  of  'unfair'  or 
*we  don't  patronize*  employers  in  their  journals"  (H.  R.  Seager, 
Laws,  Courts  and  Industrial  Bitterness  in  the  Survey,  August  2, 
1913.  P-  586).  Laidler  believes  also  that  there  will  be  an  evolution 
of  the  law  of  boycotts  similar  to  that  which  the  last  century  has 
seen  in  the  law  of  strikes.  "  One  by  one  the  arguments  which  were 
used  against  the  legality  of  strikes — practically  the  same  as  those 


142  THE   BOYCOTT   IN   AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

The  objection  might  here  be  urged  that,  although  the 
primary  boycott  bears  a  close  analogy  to  the  strike,  the  sec- 
ondary boycott  is  distinctly  different  in  effect  from  the 
simple  strike,  since,  like  the  sympathetic  strike,  it  inflicts  in- 
jury upon  an  innocent  third  party.  For  example,  a  strike 
against  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Company  affects  that 
company  alone ;  a  boycott  against  the  same  company  usually 
affects  also  its  customers,  who  are  in  no  wise  parties  to  the 
original  dispute  and  against  whom  the  union  has  no  griev- 
ance. As  industry  is  now  constituted,  such  a  result  is  in- 
evitable. A  large  manufacturing  company  rarely  sells  di- 
rectly to  the  ultimate  consumer.  Intermediate  between  the 
consumer  and  the  manufacturer  is  usually  the  agent.  If 
the  manufacturers*  goods  are  to  be  reached  by  the  boycott, 
they  must  be  boycotted  as  a  part  of  the  stock  of  the  agent. 
As  long  as  the  agent  or  retailer  continues  to  buy  the  com- 
modity in  question,  he  suffers  injury  together  with  the  man- 
ufacturer. The  retailer  may,  however,  escape  the  boycott 
by  withdrawing  his  patronage  from  the  unfair  manufac- 
turer. Since  the  boycott  of  the  retailer  is  indispensable  to 
the  waging  of  the  original  boycott,  this  simple  form  of  the 
secondary  boycott  need  not  be  distinguished  in  principle 
from  the  primary  boycott.  Where,  however,  the  union  im- 
poses a  secondary  or  tertiary  boycott  which  is  not  essential 
to  the  original  boycott — as,  for  example,  when  a  union  boy- 
cotts one  who  has  been  a  passenger  upon  an  unfair  trolley 
line,  or  one  who  has  purchased,  not  in  the  capacity  of  agent, 
an  unfair  commodity — the  extension  of  the  boycott  is  inde- 
fensible in  theory  and  practise.^*^ 

now  employed  against  boycotts — have  been  discarded.  Strikes  were 
declared  to  be  unlawful  conspiracies.  They  injured  the  property 
of  another,  they  coerced  others  against  their  will,  they  were 
malicious,  their  immediate  effect  was  harmful.  The  arguments  no 
longer  obtain.  .  .  .  That  the  same  evolution  is  likely  to  occur  in 
the  case  of  the  boycott  seems  logical"  (p.  262).  The  same  analogy 
is  drawn  by  Boudin,  p.  55. 

^^  John  Mitchell  believes  that  "  the  further  the  boycott  is  removed 
from  the  original  offender  the  less  effective  it  becomes,"  because 
such  a  boycott  is  less  likely  to  receive  public  sympathy  (Organized 
Labor,  p.  289). 


LAW   AND   THE  BOYCOTT  1 43 

Even  the  primary  boycott  exhibits  certain  characteristics 
that  distinguish  it  materially  from  the  strike.  A  strike  is, 
broadly  speaking,  a  contest  between  a  union  and  an  em- 
ployer during  which  the  employer  seeks  to  replace  the 
strikers  with  strike-breakers,  while  the  union  attempts  to 
dissuade  strike-breakers  from  taking  the  places  of  its  mem- 
bers. Under  normal  conditions,  if  no  violence  is  used,  the 
contestants  are  on  equal  terms.  The  strike-breaker  makes 
his  decision  at  the  seat  of  the  disturbance  subject  to  the  in- 
fluence of  both  the  employer  and  the  union.  The  ordinary 
boycott  is  different.  Here  the  battle  is  waged  by  thousands 
of  consumers  who  are  not  even  remotely  connected  with  the 
original  dispute;  they  enter  the  struggle,  not  because  they 
themselves  have  any  grievance,  but  because  wise  foresight 
tells  them  that  in  the  future  they  may  make  a  similar  use 
of  the  purchasing  power  of  the  union  that  now  asks  their 
support.  Their  endorsement  of  and  active  participation  in 
the  boycott  are  not  based  upon  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  the  facts  in  the  original  dispute  and  are  not  supported 
by  the  conviction  that  the  boycott  is  just ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  receive  their  information  from  the  one-sided  account 
furnished  by  the  union  and  make  no  efforts  either  to  sub- 
stantiate or  to  refute  the  charges.  When,  for  example,  the 
United  Hatters  boycotted  the  J.  B.  Stetson  Company,  thou- 
sands of  unionists  in  the  United  States  participated  in  the 
boycott  without  making  any  attempt  to  learn  the  employers* 
side  of  the  controversy.  The  same  was  true  in  the  boycott 
upon  the  Buck's  Stove  and  Range  Company  and  in  many 
other  boycotts.  Not  that  labor  organizations  had  in  these 
disputes  no  real  grievances.  In  many  cases  their  griev- 
ances are  real  and  redress  is  urgent.  This  fundamental  dis- 
tinction between  the  strike  and  boycott,  nevertheless,  re- 
mains. In  a  strike  the  employer  may  obtain  a  fair  hearing 
and  may  take  measures  to  protect  his  business ;  in  a  boycott 
the  union  acts  as  judge,  declares  the  employer  guilty,  in- 
vokes to  its  aid  a  vast  power  foreign  to  the  dispute — the  mem- 
bership of  affiliated  unions — and,  if  the  boycotted  commodity 


144  THE   BOYCOTT   IN    AMERICAN    TRADE   UNIONS 

is  sold  for  the  most  part  to  working^en,  it  succeeds  in  de- 
stroying the  employ er*s  business.  Strike-breakers  often 
help  employers  to  win  strikes;  consumers  hostile  to  trade 
unions  can,  however,  only  under  the  most  unusual  circum- 
stances be  so  organized  as  to  render  effective  aid  to  a  boy- 
cotted employer.** 

Another  quality  that  distinguishes  a  boycott  from  a  strike 
is  its  permanence.  When  a  strike  is  declared  off,  the  fac- 
tory resumes  its  work  as  before.  The  publicity  given  the 
boycott,  on  the  other  hand,  and  the  deep  feelings  of  hostility 
engendered  by  its  prosecution  produce  more  lasting  effects. 
A  commodity  once  advertised  as  unfair  retains  the  stig^ia 
for  a  long  time  after  the  boycott  is  raised.  A  retail  dealer 
who  has  been  persuaded  by  the  union  to  withdraw  his  pa- 
tronage from  an  unfair  firm  may,  even  after  the  boycott  is 
removed,  decide  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  a  similar  incon- 
venience in  the  future,  and  will  give  his  custom  to  another 
firm.  Similarly,  many  general  consumers  who  have  during 
the  period  of  boycotting  patronized  other  establishments 
will,  through  mere  inertia,  not  return  to  the  boycotted  firms 
when  the  trouble  is  over.  The  establishment  of  new  busi- 
ness connections  while  the  boycott  is  in  progress  and  the 
impression  left  upon  the  minds  of  the  consumers  by  the  ad- 
vertisement of  the  unfair  commodities  or  firms  tend  to  im- 
part to  boycotts  a  permanent  influence  which  is  not  charac- 
teristic of  the  strike. 

»«The  products  of  C  W.  Post's  company  are,  it  is  alleged,  con- 
sumed for  the  most  part  by  the  so-called  middle  class,  which  has 
no  sympathy  with  trade  unionism.  For  this  reason,  the  losses 
sustained  by  the  company  as  the  result  of  vigorous  boycotts 
launched  against  it  by  almost  every  American  trade  union  have  been 
amply  compensated  for  by  increased  patronage  from  the  opponents 
of  labor  organization.  As  a  rule,  however,  most  products  are  not 
so  thoroughly  advertised  as  is  Postum  Food,  and  the  effects  of  a 
boycott  are,  consequently,  not  mitigated  by  additional  custom  from 
new  quarters. 


INDEX 


Adams,  T.  S^  ii,  13  (note),  14 

(note). 
American    Anti-Boycott    Aiso- 

ciation,  9  (note),  39-41,  131- 

135- 
Amencan  Federation  of  Labor, 

^  31;  33-A  48,  Sa;  J67,  Tpv  n 
(note),  74  75.  8a  82;  Ml  93, 
94,  96-99.  '02,  IQ3,  105-109. 
111-114^    120,    124,    125,    130, 

American  Kailvray  Union,  ^ 
Anthracite  G>al  Strike  Cbmmtf' 

tion,  136. 
**  Anti-tKnrcott,"  94. 
Atwood  Brother^  761 

Bakery   and   Confectionery 

Wotkert'  International  Unioii, 

34^62v6^fi3,86vi4a 
Bamett,  (I  E,  i^  2s  47  (note), 

^  90  (note),  92  (note),  104 

(note),  121 
Bartenderf* 

tiooa],85. 
Beck,  James  It,  133;  134. 
BeOerille  Store  Works,  108L 
Bladk  hatp  12,  13,  42. 
Blatncv  boycott  of,  S7f  91- 
Bookbtnden,      International 

Bfotfaerbood  of,  34,  6B,  70,  S4, 

fe  (nolejL  14a 
Boot  and  Shoe  Workers'  Umoo, 

Bossert  k  Son  r.  United  Broth- 
erhood of  Cartxnters  and 
Joineri^  51  (note),  132: 

Botidin^  L.  B^  6d  (note),  142 
(note). 

Boycott;  definition,  10-13;  Wbor, 
13;  primary,  13;  secondary, 
14;  tertiary,  14;  compooad^M 
(and  note);  direct  "  " 

reet,     14; 

15;  materia^  IS  »; 
is;  emetyoMey  19-^;  on 
pnoon  made  product^  20^  23, 
44,73;  on  ■rmmiimi  tiiai^  n. 


4^-53;.   13?; 


the 


Leagncv     Intema- 


Knigbb  of  Labor,  24-32;  Uy 
cal,  26;  centralized,  28;  an- 
nomicement  of,  28;  00  prod* 
nets  of  trade-tmioo  mi 
2^-39}  railroad,  3»-33; 
the  Amencan  Federat 


Labor,  3^^;  frcqoency,  j& 
74,  109;  political,  r^jp;  and 
cmplpyerr  associatioiii»  3^ 
41;  in  forein  coostries,  41- 
42;  00  madhtne-made  prod- 
■ctii,  4S  4^  73;  00  foreigi 
prodnct^  4^  47^  backward, 
49-55;  forward, 56-58;  bteral 
58-61;  transportation,  62-65; 
on  Chinese  prodacti^  73;  «nd 
f armersT  orgintyalioiii^  84  94 
96;  extcnsioii  of,  «7^;  mb^ 
stitnte  for,  99-^;  f^tfatfiwi  of, 
io»-io^;  incidence  of,  lOj^foS; 
advertiscmatt  of,  1 1  i-i  15 ; 
tradftg  ffoodi^  116-119;  en- 
forcement of,  uo-i^:  inaace 
of,  123-42$;  and  the  injMactkMi, 

"Boycotter,"  the;  91. 

Dnartment  of  the 
of  tabor,  28L 

Brewers'  AssocSatSmi,  m 
Brewery  Workmen,  Umtcd,  31, 

33.  34.  A  SMfiv  ^  7^  791  W^ 

'^  I^I3»- 
Brick,    Tile    and    Terra    Cotta 

Workers'  Alfiance,  55,  62;  6tiw 

7* 
BrkkkqraV  and  Ifafoos'  Inter- 

national  Union,  $»,  53.  S%  A 

S»,ii7>     

BiocktoB  Central  Labor  Uoioflv 

761 
Broom  MakenT  Umon^  73,  9^ 

14a 
Bmnswidk-Balce-Collender 

Company,  105. 
Back's  Stove  and  ffmgr  Cmb- 

PMV,  13^  14  34  40^  *>-«2;  IMI 
«4$ 


146 


INDEX 


112,  113,  124,  125  (note),  137 
(note),  142,  143. 

Building  Material  Trades  Coun- 
cil, 69,  70. 

Building  Trades  Council,  52,  68, 
69. 

Burke,  W.  M.,  115  (note). 

Burnett,  J.,  22  (note),  59  (note). 

Can  Makers*  Union,  73. 

Cannon,  Congressman,  38. 

Carpenters  and  Joiners,  United 
Brotherhood  of,  21,  34,  40,  49, 
50-54,  56,  68,  105,  116,  119-121, 
124,  126,  132,  138-140. 

Caulkers  of  Boston,  59. 

Chandelier  Workers'  Union,  69. 

Chicago  Clothing  Manufactur- 
ers, 39,  88. 

Cigarmakers'  International  Un- 
ion, 30,  31. 

Qark,  J.  B.,  128. 

Clark,  L.  D.,  13  (note),  14 
(note),  129. 

Oayton  Anti-Trust  Bill,  9  (and 
note). 

"  Qosed  list,"  42. 

Closed-shop,  11;  joint,  18  (and 
note) ;  extended,  18  (and 
note). 

Cluett-Peabody  Company,  63. 

Commons,  J.  R.,  23. 

Coopers'  International  Union,  34, 
47,  53-56,  62,  76,  105,  III,  112, 
122,   123  (note),  127, 135  (note). 

Cordwainers  of  New  York,  22, 

59. 
Cummins,  Senator,  136. 

Danbury  Hatters*  Case,  9,  40, 
93,  124,  131-133,  136  (note). 

Davenport,  Daniel,  9  (note), 
40,  139  (note). 

Debs,  32,  133. 

Drummond    Tobacco    Company, 

95. 
Dueber  Company,  28. 
Dunbar,  W.  H.,  32  (note). 

Ely,  R.  T.,  16. 

Eliot,  President,  16  (note). 

Fair  list,  94-96,  97. 
Foundry     Employees,     Interna- 
tional Brotherhood  of,  80. 
Freight  Handlers*  Union,  62. 


Fuller,  Warren  Stove  Com- 
pany, 30. 

Furuseth,  Andrew,  136,  137 
(note). 

Garment  Workers,  United,  31, 
34,  38,  61-63,  72,  73,  77-79,  88, 
104  (note),  108  (note),  114 
(and  note),  118  (and  note), 
120,  122,  127,  138. 

Geldart,  W.  M.,  42. 

Glass  Bottle  Blowers'  Associa- 
tion, 47  (note). 

Glocker,  T.  W.,  66,  67  (note). 

Gold  Beaters'  Union,  68,  74. 

Gompers,  Samuel,  9  (note),  82 
(and  note),  106,  108,  no,  133, 
134,  135  (note),  136  (note). 

Gould,  Judge,  112. 

Granite  Cutters'  International 
Association,  53,  56,  61,  102 
(note),  116,  117   (note). 

Greeley,  Horace,  91. 

Hadley,  President,  16  (note). 
Hall,  F.  S.,  22  (note),  59  (note). 
Hatters     of     North     America, 

United,  34,  61,  73,  79,  "4,  "8, 

120,  122,  124,  131,132,139,143. 
Hearst,  W.  R.,  105. 
Higgins    Carpet    Company,    116 

(and  note). 
Hilbert,  F.  W.,  39  (note),  131. 
Hollander      and      Barnett,      39 

(note),  98  (note). 
Huebner,  G.  G.,  36  (note). 

International  Harvester  Com- 
pany, 84. 

Iron  and  Steel  Workers,  Amal- 
gamated Association  of,  20, 
88. 

Iron  Molders*  Union  of  Leaven- 
worth, Kansas,  77. 

Kestner,  Fritz,  10  (note). 

Kirk,  W.,  32,  37  (note),  38 
(note),  98. 

Knights  of  Labor,  20,  24-34,  37, 
48,  59,  73,  78,  80,  90,  92-95,  98, 
loi,  103,  107,  no,  III,  115 
(note),  116,  120,  121  (note), 
122  (note),  125,  130,  138. 

Label,  union,  30,  36,  93,  96,  106 
(note). 


INDEX 


147 


Ladies*   Shirtwaist  Workers   of 

New  York,  61. 
Laidler,  H.   W.,   10    (note),   16, 

32    (note),    129,    140    (note), 

141  (note). 

Laundry  Workers,  United,  62. 

Levine,  L.,  38  (note). 

Liechti,  E.,   15,  17,  41,  42. 

Liggett  and  Meyers  Tobacco 
Company,  28. 

Littlefield,  Congressman,  38. 

Locomotive  Engineers,  Broth- 
erhood of,  59,  87. 

Locomotive  Firemen  and  En- 
ginemen,   Brotherhood  of,  59. 

Loewe  and  Company,  D.  E.,  79, 

131. 

Longshoremen,  Marine  and 
Transport  Workers'  Associa- 
tion, 62. 

Lord,  A.,  76  (note),  118  (note). 

Los  Angeles  Examiner,  92. 

Los  Angeles  Times,  91,  92,  121. 

Lynch,  President,  105. 

Macgregor,  D.  H.,  49  (note). 
Machine     Coopers     Employers* 

Association,  55. 
Machinists,   International  Asso- 
ciation of,  106. 
Marble    Workers,    International 

Association  of,  53,  56,  57,  66. 
Martin,  W.  A.,  11,  129. 
Marx  and  Haas,  79. 
Meat      Cutters      and      Butcher 

Workmen,    Amalgamated,    62, 

66. 
Merritt,  W.   G.,  75,  77   (note), 

136  (note),  141. 
Metal     Polishers,     International 

Union   of,    13,   34,   53,   54,  67, 

69,  80,  85,   102,   106,   108,   109, 

no  (note),  III,  112,  120,  124, 

126,  140. 
Metal    Trades    Department,    69, 

70. 
Mine  Workers,  United,  60,  62, 

66,  83. 
Miners,  Western  Federation  of, 

38,  105. 
Mitchell,    John,    60,    82    (note), 

142  (note). 

Molders*     International    Union, 

30,  67,  81,  106. 
Morgan  Trim  Company,  118. 
Morrison,  Secretary,  82  (note), 

106. 


Musicians,  American  Federa- 
tion of,  54,  55. 

National  Association  of  Manu- 
facturers, 81. 

National  Biscuit  Company,  77, 
86. 

National  Cash  Register  Com- 
pany, 34,  85,  108,  no  (note), 
112. 

National  Sewing  Machine  Com- 
pany, 20  (note). 

Neal,  E.  H.,  21   (note),  50,  51. 

New  York,  New  Haven  and 
Hartford  R.  R.,  62. 

New  York  Sun,  91,  130. 

New  York  Tribune,  37,  90,  91. 

O'Brien,  R.  B.,  10  (note). 

Paine  Lumber  Company  v. 
United  Brotherhood  of  Car- 
penters and  Joiners,  51  (note), 
72  (note),  119,  126  (note). 

Painters,  Decorators,  and  Pa- 
perhangers,  Brotherhood  of, 
54,  105. 

Papermakers,  International 
Brotherhood  of,  71. 

Peters  PubHshing  Company,  113. 

Photo  Engravers'  International 
Union,  70,  71. 

Piano  and  Organ  Workers*  In- 
ternational Union,  104. 

Pigou,  A.  C,  12  (note),  Z7,  43- 

Plumbers,  (jas  Fitters,  Steam 
Fitters  and  Fitter  Helpers, 
Journeymen,  45,  53. 

Post,  C.  W.,  144  (note). 

Powderly,  T.  V.,  29,  107. 

Printers  of  New  York,  Associa- 
tion of,  23. 

Printing  Pressmen  and  Assist- 
ants' Union,  International,  70. 

Printing  Trades  Council,  Al- 
lied, 55,  70,  71. 

Pullman  Palace  Car  Company, 
32,  133. 

Rand,  McNally  Printing  Com- 
pany, 84. 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  91. 

Retail  Clerks'  International  Pro- 
tective Association,  57,  58,  66, 
76,  77,  78  (note),  85,  104. 

Rochester  Clothing  Manufac- 
turers, 22,  77,  78,  117,  123,  138. 


148 


INDEX 


Roelofs'  Hat  Company,  79,  114, 

120. 
Royal  Mantel  Company,  iii. 

Schliiter,  H.,  80. 

Schwittau,  G.,  14  (note),  41,  42 

(note). 
Seager,  H.  R.,  141  (note). 
Sherman    Anti-Trust    Act,    36, 

41,  133,  135. 
Spedden,   E.   R.,   30    (note),  31 

(note),    73,    78     (note),    106 

(note). 
Spooner,  Senator,  16  (note). 
Stephen,  J.  R,  16. 
Stereotypers   and   Electrotypers, 

International,  70,  106. 
Stetson,  J.  B.,  143. 
Stevens,    G.   A.,   23    (note),   24 

(note). 
Stevens,  W.  S.,  12  (note). 
Stimson,  F.  J.,  129. 
Stockton,   F.  T.,    19    (note),   55 

(note),  70  (note),  y2.   (note). 
Stonecutters'  Association,  Jour- 
neymen,   45,    46,    47,    53,    117, 

126. 
Stove    Founders'    National   De- 
fense Association,  39. 
Stove    Mounters'    International 

Union,  (iT,  106,  108. 
Strike,    13;   sympathetic,  22,   59, 

60,61,64;  statistics,  35  (note), 

64  (note). 
Studebaker  Company,  84. 
Sumner,   H.   L.,    11,    13    (note), 

14  (note),  23  (note). 
Swift  and  Company,  127. 

Tailors    of    Philadelphia,    strike 
of,  22. 


Teamsters,  International  Broth- 
erhood of,  62-65,  71. 

Textile  Workers'  Union  of 
Danville,  Virginia,  54. 

Tobin,  President,  58,  118. 

Typographical  Union,  Interna- 
tional, 19,  33,  34,  37.  54,  70,  83, 
90-92,  106,  113,  120,  130. 

Unfair  list,  74,  106-109,  111-113, 
134- 

Union  Label  Trades  Depart- 
ment, 94,  96   (and  note). 

United  States  Industrial  Com- 
mission, 14  (note). 

Upholsterers'  Union,  21. 

Valentine,     Vice-President,     80, 

106. 
Van  Cleave,  J.  W.,  81,  82,  no. 
Vose  and  Son  Piano  Company, 

105. 

Walter  Baker  Cocoa  Company, 

76. 
Waltershausen,    S.   von,    17,    22 

(note),     26,     89     (note),     91 

(note),  125  (note). 
Webb,  Sidney  and  Beatrice,  11, 

46,  48  (note). 
Western  Electric  Company,  106. 
Wilcox,  Ella  Wheeler, 85  (note). 
Wood  Carvers'  Association,  105. 
Woodworkers'    International 

Union,   Amalgamated,   56,   62, 

Wright,    P.    G.,    9    (note),    13S 

(note). 
Wyman,  B.,  13  (note). 


VITA 

Leo  Wolman  was  born  in  Baltimore,  Maryland,  Feb- 
ruary 24,  1890.  He  received  his  elementary  education  in 
the  public  schools  of  Baltimore,  and  was  graduated  from 
the  Baltimore  City  College  in  1908.  In  191 1  he  received 
the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  from  the  Johns  Hopkins 
University.  Since  191 1  he  has  been  pursuing  graduate 
courses  at  the  same  university  in  Political  Economy,  Mathe- 
matics, and  Political  Science.  During  191 3-14  he  was  Fel- 
low in  Political  Economy.  He  received  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Philosophy  in  1914.  In  1914-15  he  was  Special 
Agent  for  the  United  States  Commission  on  Industrial  Rela- 
tions ;  and  during  the  second  semester  of  191 5  was  Acting 
Professor  of  Economics  and  Sociology  in  Hobart  Collie. 


149 


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